Chapter 26
Murphy’s Law of Relationships #24
“Men and women will act rationally when
all other possibilities have been exhausted.”
After the interview , Toni moped around her apartment for the rest of the day and night. That wasn’t like her. She hated sitting around worrying—she hated any lack of action, any lack of resolution.
She hated being a coward.
She stared at the phone, but she wasn’t going to call again. She’d called BJ’s house and his cell phone several times yesterday and this morning. BJ wasn’t answering and neither was Sam. She tried to imagine working with Starling if she did become lead counsel, or worse, handing over any dealings with him to another lawyer. She hated the gut-wrenching knots any thought of him provoked.
She needed to talk to him. To apologize. But what could she say?
No use pacing back and forth in her living room. She considered the large, unopened bottle of single malt whiskey, and decided it offered the coward’s way out. She needed to do something. She needed him. It was worse not knowing what he would say. She had to go to Sammamish.
The afternoon had turned gray when Toni parked her Jeep at BJ’s house. There were no cars in sight, but they might be in the garage. She didn’t see any lights on. She sat in her Jeep trying to think of what she wanted to say, but her thoughts scattered.
As Rena had pointed out, BJ was everything she wanted in a man. Why hadn’t she seen that sooner? She put on her coat although it wasn’t the cool air making her shiver. She looked at herself in the rearview mirror. She’d left her condo in a rush without any makeup, and with her hair a mess. She reached for her purse for a brush and lipstick but stopped. Shit, Crenshaw, just do it!
She went to the front door and knocked, rang the doorbell and when she still heard nothing, banged on the door. No sound. She tried it. Locked. That troubled her. BJ had never locked it before.
She stared through the cut glass patterns on the door’s windows into the dim interior, the fractured images in the shadows reflecting her emotional turmoil. Defeated, she turned and walked away. She tried to think of how she could track BJ down, but before she reached her Wrangler, faint noises from the back of the house caught her attention.
She quietly followed the stone path that wound around the side of the house. Past the bathhouse, she could see the pool. A swimmer plowed through the water with aggressive strokes. In the gloom, the blonde bleaching of sun and pool chlorine could be seen streaking his brown hair. Muscular arms and his purposeful style of movement all told her BJ was the swimmer. A folded robe and towel lay by the pool, so Toni went and stood by them, watching him attack the water.
He stopped at the far end of the pool, wiping water from his face and hair. When he saw her, he blinked several times clearing the water from his eyes. A frown settled on his brow, which remained as he did a slow breaststroke toward her. Throwing his forearms up on the pool edge, he studied her a moment, and said, “You should know, if you hit me again, I will hit back.”
Toni saw the large greenish brown bruise covering his cheek and grimaced. “I won’t hit you.”
Without warning, BJ heaved himself out of the pool and stood before her sans a bathing suit.
Toni stared at him for a moment and then whipped around, back to him. “Damn it, Starling, give a girl some warning.” She could feel herself blushing, remembering the last time she’d said those words.
“Why? I didn’t invite you here, and it certainly isn’t something you haven’t seen before.”
She steeled herself and turned around. He casually dried himself, reminding her of the last time she’d watched him do that—only in wet boxer shorts. She tried keeping eye contact, but only succeeded after the fourth attempt.
Finished with the towel, BJ picked up the short robe and threw it on. Tying it off, he said, “What do you want, Toni?”
“To talk.” He made no comment as he picked up the wet towel, so she persevered. “To apologize for hitting you, for not believing you.”
“For not trusting me.”
He said it with such finality that she felt panic well up, choking her, making her limbs weak.
“BJ, I—”
“ Now , I understand Sam’s concerns, your concerns about my dating, and my experiments.”
Toni winced but stepped toward him.
“I’ve had my experiment in love, and I’ve acquired a thorough education.” He made a move to leave, but Toni stepped in front of him.
“There’s more to the course, Doctor,” she said with more hope than conviction.
His expression grew hard. “Oh, you have more to teach me? Is there a reason I would want those lessons?”
That anger, the bitterness had been her doing. The pain and shame of it left her speechless. She’d really given him an education.
When Toni failed to answer, he stepped past her and pulled open the sliding glass door. “No thank you.”
She shook her head. “I have more to learn, not you.”
He paused halfway in the door and looked at her for several long seconds, then gazed off toward the lake. She knew better than to interrupt his contemplation, even if she’d known what to say. Standing so close to him, the silence pushed at her like the gusts from the lake, making it torture to keep her mouth shut and hands off him.
He looked at her with an odd expression, one she couldn’t read. It wasn’t anger, but it wasn’t forgiveness either. In a matter-of-fact tone, he said, “I’m going in to have a shower. If you want to talk, then you can join me there.”
“What? In the shower?”
“There’s plenty of room. If you want to talk, that’s where I’ll be.”
“BJ, I’m not—”
“Fine. Then leave.” With that, he strode into the house, leaving the glass door open. At the foot of the stairs, he called out, “If you’re still down here when I’m done, I’m throwing you out on your cute little butt.”
Toni stared after him, mouth open. He never ceased to surprise her. She had no doubt he would toss her out the front door. She wouldn’t have believed he could have this hard edge to him. Had she also taught him that? The thought made her forehead ache.
Rubbing her temples, she considered the open glass door for a time and then shook herself, rolling her head around to loosen her neck. The man never felt the need to explain himself, but he did communicate all the same. She just hadn’t listened when he did.
If she was going to keep pace with Dr. Genius, she was going to have to seriously up her game. He was a challenge and she found herself excited by it. She entered the house and closed the door behind her with a determined smile.
The bedroom at the top of the stairs was empty. Toni could hear the shower going behind the closed bathroom door, the swishing sounds undulating as he moved under the spray. It did strange things to her equilibrium. She pursed her mouth and threw her coat on a nearby chair.
She was going to do this.
After unbuttoning her blouse and taking it off, she paused, thinking. She suddenly grinned and kicked off her shoes and socks, took out her wallet and keys, stuffing them into her coat pockets. Unhooked her bra, which she threw on top of her coat, and drew on the blouse again.
She stepped into the huge, tiled shower, the area of a king-sized bed. Jets of hot water shot from every direction creating a fog, isolating them from the world. BJ had been washing his hair, his back to her, filling up the massive shower, big and beautiful as always, elbows high, powerful wings of muscle flowing up from his waist. He turned around and started as though he hadn’t expected her to join him.
He raised his eyebrows, seeing her in her clothes, but gave her half a smile. She smiled back, and then grinned as his eyes locked on her wet blouse and took on a mesmerized glassiness.
“Can we talk now, BJ?” She arched her back a little.
He slowly pulled his gaze away from her chest and washed the rest of the soap out of his hair. “The idea was to have you here naked. I’ve read that taking a shower together is one way to keep conversations open and honest.”
“I’m here to talk—open and honest,” she said, cocking her head as she casually eyed him up and down. “If you want me naked, you’re going to have to undress me.”
He considered her for a moment and then nodded, a corner of his mouth turning up. “Talk away.”
“I understand why you didn’t tell me about the formulas’ failure to work.”
“It didn’t fail to work.”
“What?”
BJ pulled up a corner of his mouth. “I designed it to break down in fifteen minutes. That way, it had a safety switch. The night of the experiment, I didn’t know exactly how many minutes had elapsed from application to the time we were in your car, but probably enough time had passed to render it harmless by then.”
“You mean you could have made the formulas stable?”
“Yes.” He cocked his head and raised his eyebrows, asking her to understand.
“So you didn’t plan all along to sell them the unstable formula?”
He shrugged. “No, I didn’t plan to sell it at all, but the sale turned out to be the solution to several issues at once, sort of like cascading chemical reactions.” He smiled at her. “If they had simply tested the formula first as I told them to, they would never have bought it.”
Of course. Toni stared at him for a moment and then closed her eyes, letting the hot water flow over her. BJ had bet on Bateman’s greed, but if they had tested the formulas, there’d have been no deal, and Bateman still wouldn’t have had the formulas. He’d have given up the chase. “Could someone else stabilize the formulas?”
“I doubt it. Not without the catalytic methods I’ve developed, and I’m not sharing those.”
Toni opened her eyes and said as forthrightly as she could, “I’m so sorry I hit you. You knew how, how scared I was of the formulas getting into Bateman’s hands. You could have told me, trusted me, well, sooner.”
BJ placed his back under the spray of a nearby shower head. “When? If I told you that I knew the formulas wouldn’t work, you’d been ethically bound to tell Bateman, and then he would’ve had grounds for a lawsuit.” He raised an eyebrow. “Besides, you wanted the lead counsel position.”
“You knew?”
He nodded. “I knew there had to be a reason you’d agree to collaborate with me. It certainly wasn’t my magnetic personality,” he said, glancing at her. She closed her eyes to avoid seeing his, so he waited until she opened them again. “When Rena told me about your ambition to be lead counsel, it was easy to guess.” He picked up a washcloth and scrubbed his face, then said, “I was glad to see you obtain what you wanted.”
She sighed and placed her face under one of the shower heads. The hot water felt cleansing. She pulled wet hair away from her face. “I took advantage of you to get what I wanted.”
He shrugged. “It’s only true if I didn’t know what you were doing. Your deal with Bateman didn’t hurt me.” He offered an approving smile. “Regardless, you were willing to give up your dream to keep the formulas from the board.”
She looked at BJ standing in the spray, regarding her. So reasonable, so understanding, so naked and nonchalant. With a deep breath, she said, “BJ, I know I’m a . . . I overreacted. I’m so sorry I didn’t trust you. I know I hurt you, hurt you badly.” She reached out to his face where she’d hit him, but stopped, feeling the wet blouse pull at her chest and inwardly smiled when his eyes followed the movement.
She stepped closer to him, his eyes meeting her gaze. “It’s the last thing I wanted. I learned to distrust men. I lost the ability to trust.” She laid her hand on his chest. “I’ve never been in love before, and the thought of you lying to me . . . I don’t remember hitting you. I just reacted, it hurt that much.” She reached up and touched his bruised cheek, water cascading over her hand. “I’d take it all back if I could.”
He placed his hand on hers, studying her face for a long time. “So, you do love me?”
“Hopelessly.” She frowned at his grin in response. “Don’t smile yet. Obviously, I’m also hopelessly inexperienced at love and have serious trust issues.” She placed both hands on his chest, patting him as she spoke. “The question is, can you forgive me, still love me, trust me, the unpredictable, frightened little bitch?”
He placed his hands over hers. “Then you know as much about love as I do. You certainly aren’t little.” He grinned at her worried frown when he paused. “Or a bitch. Just a good lawyer.”
“One might quibble over the differences.”
“Not me. It is true. You are unpredictable, sweet, with an Irish-Italian temper. I happen to enjoy that energy about you.”
“So you still might be able to love me?”
“I haven’t stopped loving you, Toni. I can’t. I don’t know how or want to, no matter how miserable you might make me.” He ran his hands through her wet hair. They came to rest on the sides of her face. “Do you believe me? Can you trust me in that?”
Putting her hands over his and looking up into his eyes, she said, “Yes, yes, I can. I’m a slow learner, but I promise to remember that when you’re being your constantly changing self.”
He smiled and kissed her lightly. “I love you far more than I can say—certainly enough to marry you, so I can love you for a long, long time.” He raised an eyebrow, looking serious. “Trust me, that won’t change.”
She knew her heart stopped for an instant. He leaned in for another kiss, but she pulled back her head.
“Whoa there, mister. If we’re going to talk marriage, you’re going to have to undress me first.”
~ ~ ~
“Da, NO!”
Her father stood in the middle of his living room and waved away her objection. “Just let your brothers get to know him.”
“We talked about marriage for a week. I wanted to get married as soon as possible, but no, BJ insisted on meeting the family.” Toni glared at her father. “I told him it was a bad idea coming here, but he’d already paid for the tickets to Kennedy.”
Her father nodded sagely. “Yes, to ask me for your hand as he should.”
“And you all still treated him as though he crawled out of a South End sewer.” She pointed to the door leading to the garage at the back of the house. “So, what are my brothers doing in there with him?” She tried the garage door, but they’d locked it.
“Just getting acquainted.”
“You can wipe that smug grin off your face. I saw Patrick crack his knuckles and Victor nod when Mario pulled BJ into the garage ‘to show him your Studebaker.’ You know that isn’t what they’re doing.”
She had also seen BJ’s wink as they led him away, but he didn’t know her brothers. She pounded on the door and yelled her brothers’ names. No response, though she could hear them talking.
“Antonietta, he’s just a boy, two years younger than you. We can’t let you marry just anyone.”
Toni stomped around, glancing at the door when she heard voices raised. “You four have nothing to say about it. Nothing . You don’t let me marry.” She faced her father, several inches taller than Toni, balding, but still slim, regarding her unperturbed. “If they hurt him, I’m never speaking to any of you again, ever .” She tapped his chest with her finger. “ Got that?”
“Calm down, child. We don’t know if he’s good enough for you.”
“Seriously ? ” She counted off on her fingers, starting with the one poking his shirt front. “He’s brilliant, he has two doctorates, he’s a multi-millionaire, he owns his own research lab.” She made a fist. “He’s the best man I know AND I love him. Isn’t that enough ?”
“That all speaks well of him, but that doesn’t mean—”
“Get over it, Da. I’m marrying him with or without your permission .” She rubbed her forehead, fighting the all too familiar, headache inducing exasperation with her bone-headed family. She slapped her thigh saying, “Hell, he’s too good for me but luckily he doesn’t agree, so I’m not going to let you or my brothers screw that up.”
Her father slowly sat in his favorite recliner, the oldest thing in their house, if not the entire Stuyvesant Avenue, and put up his feet. “Is marrying someone from the West Coast a good idea, Antonietta? Shite , it’s Loony Land out there. They’re all crazy.” He waved a hand in the direction of the garage. “Look at Mario and Jane, how hard marriage is for someone from the same neighborhood. My marriage, for Christ’s sake. But you want to wed this stranger ?”
Thumps and raised voices rattled the garage door.
Toni pounded on the door, giving it a kick for good measure, but there was still no answer. She sat in a chair by the garage door at the far end of the living room, the familiar dread twisting her insides, the same draining anxiety.
She’d hoped that things might be different now that Mario and Jane had reconciled, that BJ wanted to marry her, but no. She ran her hand through her hair. “Why can’t you just be happy for us?” Toni implored.
The garage door banged open to hoots and laughter. Toni shot out of the chair, every nerve vibrating. Her three brothers, all smiles, pushed BJ into the living room. He was buttoning his shirt and gave Toni a crooked grin. The four men came to a tumultuous halt in front of their father.
Mario, taller than BJ, pounded him on the back, a loud popping sound that made Toni wince, declaring, “Da, he’s all right. We have three stretch limos into the city tonight. BJ’s taking the whole family to Carmine’s.”
Their father waved away the possibility. “Bah, we’d have to invite Jane’s family and your uncles and their wives. Hell, all our cousins and maybe the neighbors too. That’s too many for that fancy place on 44 th Street.”
“No, Da, I mean the whole family. He’s reserved the entire restaurant tonight!”
It was the only time she’d seen her father speechless. He sputtered, but her brothers surrounded him, all talking at once about getting everyone on the phone. Amid the brothers’ chatter, Victor tapped his father on the shoulder and yelled above the noise created by his siblings, “Da, you should see this guy. He’s ripped!”
Toni was totally confused. Carmine’s? She grabbed BJ and pulled him through the swinging door into the kitchen. “Did they bully you into taking them to Carmine’ s ?”
“Of course not. I arranged that yesterday.” BJ took her hand off his arm and kissed it. “Your family is the pushing and pullingest people. Really physical. I can see where you get it.”
Toni pursed her mouth at his smiling good humor. “What the hell happened in the garage?”
He took her in his arms. “They surrounded me, and rolling up their sleeves, they said they weren’t going to let some nerdy egghead marry their sister.”
“Damn them!” She pushed away from him, leaping toward the door, growling, “If they hurt you, I’m going to—”
“Nothing happened.” He grabbed her around the waist and as she protested, pulled her back to his chest. “I told them that they couldn’t stop me, but if they wanted to try, they could do it there in the garage,” he said, his lips twitching, “but we were sure to put dents in their father’s classic Studebaker.”
She eyed him as though he’d suddenly turned into a lunatic. “But they didn’t hurt you?”
“No, love. But from their threatening body language I didn’t see any other choice. I took off the shirt you bought me for the trip—I didn’t want that to get ruined—and got into a fighting stance I’d seen in a book on self-defense that Sam loaned me. It shows—”
She gripped his arm. “Damn it, BJ. Why goad them? The three of them could have really hurt you.”
He touched his still discolored cheek and grinned. “You’re worth a beating—maybe even two.” She glanced higher at the white scar on his brow. He looked up too and shrugged. “Or three.”
Toni shook him. “ What happened?! ”
“Well,” he said, squinting in thought, “They raised their fists like this.” He took a pugilist’s stance. “They looked at me for a few seconds, then at each other.” He shrugged. “Mario asked me where I gotten the bruise, though you can hardly see it, and the new scar. I told them—the scar was from the butt of a gun, and you gave me the bruise.” He patted her arm. “They thought you punching me in the elevator was hilarious.” BJ’s smile turned thoughtful when he saw her impatient glare. “They asked what happened to the gunman that hit me. When I told them, they said they didn’t believe me. I said “tough,” and got down in the boxing stance again, but mentioned you saw it all because I’d been protecting you at the time.”
She wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing to tell her brothers or not. “What did they say to that?”
“They looked at me for a minute, then each other, and grinned. They declared I was ‘Okay.’”
“Oh.” She hugged him tightly, sighing into his shoulder. “How did you know?”
“Know? I didn’t.” Arms around her, he ran his lips over her ear. “It was a calculated risk, based on traditional machismo and family dynamics. I read up on it. Your brothers express themselves physically. They respect action. They care about you and don’t know how to show it.”
She rubbed her ear against his chest to stop the tickling. He chuckled and pulled her away, and touching foreheads said, “Rather deaf, dumb and blind in that respect.” Then he gave her that sexy grin of his. “You know, clueless . I can relate.”
He ran his thumb gently over her cheek and said, “It’s fascinating, really. Your family needs big demonstrations. That’s why I reserved Carmine’s. In a study done by—”
Toni threw her arms around his neck. “BJ.”
“Yes?”
“Shut up and kiss me.” So he did, long and passionately.