After Midnight (17 page)

“That would explain it then.”

“Explain what?”

“Why Noah was concerned enough to take the next day to check on you. You were lucky, you know.”

“I know.”

Dominic grabbed the handle on the bag containing lunch and lifted it off the bar. “I’d better get going and let you talk to your dad. I’ll ring you when we head to the field for soccer.”

“Sure.”

Her gaze tracked him until he pushed open the door and slipped outside. “What can I get you to drink, Dad?”

“I’ll take a beer.”

Grabbing a bottle out of the cooler, she slipped out from behind the bar and carried it to the table with her. She placed the beer before him as she slid into the seat opposite his.

Thomas gave her a long, silent inspection. He reached out and curled his hand around the bottle. “I thought you liked the other one, the singer.”

“Noah.”

“I know his name,” he growled.

She grinned.

“Who’s the guy that just left?”

“His name is Dominic.”

“I don’t like the look of that one.”

“What’s wrong with the way he looks?”

“He’s a pretty boy,” he replied with a scowl. “He’s good looking and he knows it. Men like that don’t stay with one woman for long.”

She studied him across the span of the table. His Fu Manchu mustache and bulging biceps, the shirts that always appeared one size too small because of the way they hugged his brawn. If not for the tattooed arms, he looked a little like the bald guy on the cleaning product ads. She wondered what he’d say if she told him so.

Better not.

Most people took one look at Thomas and made assumptions about him. The wrong assumptions. They never took the time to get to know him. The time to discover that beneath his daunting exterior beat the heart of a teddy bear.

“I like the other one,” he said, interrupting her thoughts. “The singer.”

“So do I.”

He cocked his head. “You don’t sound happy about it.”

She rested her arms on the table and leaned forward, locking her gaze with his. “Dad, why did you bring Tommy by last night?”

“He wanted to apologize to you.”

“But why last night? Why not tonight, or tomorrow?”

“Thursdays are your nights off.”

She shifted her gaze to the piano set against the wall. His answer sounded reasonable enough. Still, she had to wonder at the timing. “It didn’t have anything to do with Noah being there?”

“How was I supposed to know he would be there?”

“Maybe you two planned it. He was with you yesterday afternoon.”

He took a drink from his beer for the first time since she’d brought it to him. “Yes, he was.”

“Did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Dad,” she said with a sigh. She’d spent half the night reliving the kiss she and Noah shared. The hot press of his body against hers, the exquisite male taste of him. The second half wondering whether his arrival at her place had been an elaborate set-up orchestrated by the man sitting across from her right now.

If it had...Oh, God, she didn’t want it to be true. She pushed both hands over her face and through her hair.

“Is he who all this is for?”

“This?”

“The flash of skin, the perfume you’re wearing.”

She looked down at herself and frowned. She couldn’t deny it. She’d dressed with a certain singer in mind. Sitting here now, she didn’t know why she’d gone to so much trouble. “I thought he might stop by.”

“And when he didn’t, you started to wonder about last night?”

“No. I wondered last night after you and Tommy left. Today just…” She placed her elbows on the table and dropped her face into her hands. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Would it help if I told you I had nothing to do with Noah showing up at your apartment last night?”

Although his admission came as a relief, her confusion about Noah and the feelings he brought out in her remained a tangled mess. “Not really.”

“You don’t need it, you know.”

Her hands fell away from her face as she focused on him again. “What don’t I need?”

“The flash of skin or the perfume. I’ve seen the way he looks at you, Izzy. Noah likes you fine, without the extra fuss. Be yourself. The rest will come.”

It was “the rest” that had her tied in knots. From the beginning, she recognized that Noah was different from any other man she’d been attracted to. Different in the way he saw her, and in the way he made her feel. It was unsettling enough that she couldn’t decide whether she wanted him to go back to California and leave her to her life, or kiss her again so that she could make sure she wasn’t mistaken about last night. That she hadn’t imagined the shock of desire that shot through her at his touch, or exaggerated the way his kiss made her feel.

She let out a weighty sigh. “He doesn’t plan to be in town long. As soon as his studio is completed, he’ll go back to California.”

“Are you asking me what you should do?”

She reached out and took hold of his hand. “Would you? If I asked you, would you tell me?”

“I won’t tell you how to live your life. I will tell you that you’ve changed since he’s come into it.”

“I have? How?”

“For one thing, you never used to hold my hand.”

At the emotion in his voice she glanced down to find her hand engulfed in both of his. It had been years since she’d accepted even the most casual of touches from anyone, including him. The times she did were only when she initiated the contact, and even then she was always quick to shift away.

She didn’t know what to say.

“So do you let just any guy hold your hand anymore?” he asked lightly.

“Only the good-looking ones.”

He cleared his throat and looked away. It was a moment before he commented. “You invited me here to talk, aren’t you going to talk?”

“I thought that’s what we were doing?”

He looked back, the expression on his face serious. “You and I both know what you want to ask me.”

Isabeau turned her attention back to his hands. She needed to know, to hear it from him. At the same time, she didn’t know how she would handle it, depending on his answer. She couldn’t have him hurting Tommy in her name. Violence, in any circumstance, made her blood run cold.

She looked up at him again. He endured her long scrutiny with quiet patience. “Did you do it?”

“You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Did you hit Tommy? Are you the one responsible for giving him the black eye?”

“And if I did?”

Her stomach knotted tightly. She knew the sound a fist made as it made contact with flesh—felt the shock of pain herself, a time or two. A tremor worked through her.

“Would you pull away from me, again?”

“No.” She knew he’d never hurt her. He wasn’t that type of man. “Just tell me, please.”

“Would it be so bad?”

“He’s your son.”

“You’re my daughter.”

She shook her head. “Not—”

“Don’t say it,” he warned. The hand resting atop hers flexed. “You are my daughter.”

“I’m not. Not by blood, the way Tommy is.”

“Do you think that matters to me? Do you think that has ever mattered to me?”

Emotion tightened her throat as his voice cracked.

“Tommy is my son by blood, yes, but his mother did such a bang-up job filling him with hatred for me that he can’t see past it. He doesn’t need or want me in his life. But you, Izzy, you do. From the day I first met you, you welcomed me as your father. You mustn’t feel bad about that, because I’ve needed you, too. All these years I’ve needed you as much as you’ve needed me.”

“I do need you,” she admitted, “and I love you, but…”

“There were years I couldn’t be there for you,” he stated abruptly.

No.

She tried to withdraw, but he stopped her by tightening his hand around hers. She held her breath, afraid of the direction this conversation seemed to be heading.

“I’d give anything to be able to go back and change things. To save you from the years we were apart. I know how you feel about violence, Izzy. I would never do anything to hurt you.”

“I know you wouldn’t, I do.”

“It wasn’t me.”

It wasn’t him. Her fears were unsubstantiated.

He hadn’t decided to teach Tommy a lesson or hurt him in her name. She’d been wrong to even consider it, she knew that now. Her eyes slid closed as she worked to pull her emotions back under control.

The one thing that still unsettled her was the timing. Tommy’s black eye appeared fresh, as if he’d gotten it not long before he’d showed up at her apartment to apologize. And his apology, that didn’t fit with the Tommy she knew. Which is what led her to question her father in the first place. After all, he was the one to deliver Tommy to her door.

Her father wasn’t the only person who knew how traumatic Tommy’s attack had been for her. There was another who witnessed the event firsthand. Who then saw the damage to her SUV and immediately suspected Tommy for that second attack as well.

Her eyes snapped open. “You don’t think Noah…” her words trailed off as a knot formed in her throat. He wouldn’t, would he? She pushed out of the chair and to her feet. “I’ll be right back.”

“Isabeau.” His tone and use of her birth name over her nickname stopped her dead in her tracks, only a few feet from their table. “You know Tommy’s temper. If he upset the wrong person...His assailant could be anyone.”

She took a deep breath. “I have to know, Dad. I have to know if Noah is capable of—”

“If he’s capable of protecting you?”

“I don’t see it that way, you know I don’t.”

He sighed wearily. “What if he is responsible? What are you going to do?”

Her stomach cramped abruptly. She could tell that he didn’t want her to go. It only made her that much more determined.

“You can’t leave the bar unattended,” he argued, shifting her anxiety up a notch.

“You’re here.”

“I don’t know enough to be here alone. It’s almost lunch.”

She turned and started for the door. “Betty will be here soon.”

“I don’t much like Betty,” he mumbled.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be back before the first customer walks through the door.”

****

“We need to talk.”

Noah looked up from his seat in the studio lounge and came face-to-face with a fiery-eyed, ebony-haired bartender, sporting stiletto heels and a frown. His entire body reacted.