IF YOU WANTED THE MOON (12 page)

They talked and sipped wine and talked some more, mostly about books and history, until Tori announced that it was late and she’d better get back before Ethan, as she put it, “cals out the national

guard.”

And that, as if it was some type of invitation, was when Neal pounced. First he tried to kiss her. She told him no. Then, when she tried to stand up, he puled her back down. No-way, he thought, was she leaving without him getting some, not after he’d wasted this entire evening with her little talkative butt. Getting him to go on and on with her about those ridiculous romance novels he wouldn’t read if they were the last books on earth. And his pressure on her got stronger and more forceful.

Tori fought back, pushing him away from her and nearly kicking his lights out, but Neal was deceptively strong and had the advantage over her from the beginning. He pinned her down, ripping at her

clothes, he even managed to rip part of her panties. She fought harder then, scampering and kicking and biting until he was forced to free her from his grasp. And she cold cocked him, hitting him with a right straight across the chin. His violence elevated then, and he tried to grab her again, but she was too fast. She was on her feet and running for the door before he could draw back his hand. And when she cleared the door she ran for her life, kicking up sand as if she were a ground mole, looking back in terror to see if Neal was going to try and overtake her.

By the time she made it to Ethan’s house she was running up the steps of his deck crying his name. If his door was locked she was dead, she kept thinking. And although she didn’t see Neal behind her, she just knew he was there, somewhere, waiting to pin her down again.

“Ethan!” she cried as she ran up the steps, the panic in her voice enough to turn on the outside lights at his neighbor’s house. When she finaly made it to his door, he was just slinging it open, the panic on his face nearly matching hers.

“Oh, Ethan!” she cried as she fel into his arms.

“What’s wrong?” he asked desperately as he looked behind her and then slammed the door shut, locking it. “What happened?”

She looked up into his eyes, but she couldn’t speak.

“Did Hurst try something with you?” he asked her. She nodded.

“What did he do?” He looked at her torn dress, at her shattered face. “Did he
rape
you?” he asked as if he couldn’t believe those words were coming from his mouth. He was furious now.

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “But he tried.”

Ethan could hardly contain his fury. But he calmed down, he had to. “He’l deny it, of course.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“He’l say you wanted it.”

“I know.”

Ethan’s nostrils flared with barely controled anger. He puled Tori against him, smothering her, holding her as if he’d never let her go. Then he lifted her into his arms and carried her upstairs.

As she sat on the bed, he turned on the jets of the bathroom’s Jacuzzi and then returned to the bedroom and undressed her himself. He removed her dress, and her bra, revealing her large breasts and flat stomach. When he saw that her panties were torn, however, he looked for the first time since he began this exercise away from her body. “You sure he didn’t touch you?”

“He tried, but he didn’t.”

“Sonafabitch!” Ethan yeled, and then forced himself to calm back down. He wasn’t helping Tori by behaving this way, and he knew it. He, instead, stood her up and removed her panties. She fel against him again, clinging to him, and he wrapped her in his arms. He rubbed her bare back and buried his face in her hair. “It must have been awful for you,” he said. She could only began crying again.

Ethan walked her into the bathroom and then lifted her and placed her into the Jacuzzi. Then he squatted down beside the tub and looked at her. “Listen, sweetie, I want you to take your time, okay?

I’ve got to take care of some business, but I’l be back.”

“Business?” she asked, although a part of her brain knew exactly what he meant. “Shouldn’t we cal the police?”

“That won’t be necessary, Tori,” he said. With a wel-respected hot shot like Hurst, it wouldn’t matter, he wanted to add. “I just want you to stay here until I get back. Okay?”

“You won’t be long?”

Ethan tried to smile, to reassure her, but his pained expression wouldn’t let it through. “No, I won’t be long,” he said.

And then he stood, walked deliberately slow down the stairs, out of the house, and to his car, where, without giving it a second thought, he puled a gun from his glove compartment.

And then he stood, walked deliberately slow down the stairs, out of the house, and to his car, where, without giving it a second thought, he puled a gun from his glove compartment.

The gun got him inside the house, and his fist did the rest. Neal Hurst wasn’t surprised to see Tori’s boss coming over with al of his big bravado. He’d expected it, in fact. But what he didn’t expect was to see the man so angry, so irrational, that the wel rehearsed speech he had planned to give to Chandler or the police or anyone else who asked, didn’t stand a chance. Chandler, he quickly realized, didn’t come for explanations. He came for retribution. And they fought, initialy, but after only a few licks exchanged it was clear that this battle was more a demolition. A one-sided, demolishing of Neal’s face. So much so that, by the time Ethan left, Neal Hurst was beaten almost beyond recognition.

Now Ethan was back in his own home, walking quietly up the stairs, praying that Tori was fast asleep under the weight of the horror she had endured. Not surprisingly, however, given what she’d

endured, she wasn’t asleep at al, but was wide awake sitting upright in his bed. Her eyes widened when he darted the door, nearly three hours after he’d left her alone in his Jacuzzi, and she could tel just by his body alone that he’d been in quite a battle. There were no physical scars, but the guilt and the emotional toil was al over his battle-worn face.

He plopped down in a chair in the room and leaned his head back in exhaustion. Tori puled her knees up to her chin and stared at him. “What happened?” she finaly asked him.

He exhaled, but didn’t look at her. “We had a discussion,” he said. Actualy, Neal did al of the talking. Or pleading as it turned out. An event that took mere minutes. For the last few hours Ethan had been sitting out on his deck, feeling the pinch of the violence he’d just participated in, hating how desperately he had wanted to harm Hurst. Al he could think about was the way Hurst had ripped Tori’s panties, at the way he came so close to irrevocably violating her. Ethan would have kiled him if he had. There was no doubt about it. He would have murdered him for hurting Tori. And that wrinkle, one that went against his very nature to never get this emotionaly attached to anyone, was what was troubling him.

He looked at Tori, this woman no man had better touch, and he smiled at her. “It’s al right,” he said to her worried face. “Go to sleep.”

It seemed impossible to Tori, the idea of sleeping, but she laid down in bed just the same. Ethan had actualy tucked her in the first time she slept in his bed, a gesture she found almost comical. Now she wished he’d do it again. But when she glanced at him, his head was leaned back and he was staring at the ceiling, as if lost in his own bad day.

By the time Tori came downstairs the next morning, she looked out of the window and saw a group of strange men talking with Ethan outside. She thought, at first, they might have been police detectives because one of the men, she could see, wore a gun, but as she looked closer she realized they weren’t. Karl Brennan was in this group. These men were Ethan’s men. That was why her heart dropped, when they left Ethan’s side and began heading for Neal’s house.

Tori hurried to the door as Ethan came up to it. “What are they going to do?” she asked nervously. “Don’t let them cause more trouble, Ethan.”

Ethan had to grab hold of her and smile. “Stop worrying,” he told her. “They’re just going to help him pack.”

“Pack? But he lives here.”

“Not while you’re here he doesn’t. Have you eaten?”

“No, I just came downstairs.”

“Go eat. I made you breakfast. We have a lot of work ahead of us today.”

“But what about—”

“Tori,” Ethan said almost impatiently. “Just do it. Please.”

Tori exhaled. For some odd reason she was beginning to trust him now. “Okay,” she said, and headed for the kitchen.

After touring by helicopter yet another land site, Ethan dropped Tori off at the house. His security chief had phoned and needed to see him at the hotel, but couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Tori’s side. He was kissing her passionately before they made it into the foyer. He had wanted her so badly al day, but dared not lay a hand on her. Now he couldn’t take his hands off of her, kissing her so hard that he caused her to back to ram against the slightly ajar door, and slam it shut.

But he couldn’t stop there. He had to touch flesh. Her flesh. He tried to unbutton her blouse, and she attempted to assist him, but it was taking too long. He ripped her blouse from top to bottom and slung it off of her. Then he lifted her bra, stared momentarily at her large, perky breasts, and began to suck them wildly. Tori leaned her head back and screamed his name. He wanted her so hungrily that he could barely contain himself, and Tori felt his desperation.

Then he puled her against him, tears in his eyes, and held her as tightly as he could without squeezing the life out of her smal body. He wanted her, not just her body, but
her,
and he wanted her unlike he’d ever wanted anybody. He started kissing her again, on her red hot lips. He dreaded leaving her side, as he couldn’t seem to stop kissing her mouth, her neck, her breasts. And even when he did finaly remove his lips form her body, he puled her even tighter into his arms.

“Oh, Tori,” he found himself blurting out. “I . . .”

He almost said it. He almost told her that he loved her. He opened his eyes as he held her, as his unfinished sentence stil hung in the air like an echo. But he did love her. He knew it for certain last night, when he left her at Neal Hurst’s apartment. He was so hurt that he could hardly think straight. And then when he heard her screaming his name, with terror in her voice, his heart dropped, and he thought he was going to drop dead, too. But now she was safe and Hurst was gone.

He puled her back and looked at her. And he smiled. “I owe you for that blouse,” he said.

Tori smiled. “It’s on the house,” she replied.

Ethan laughed. And then he turned serious. He hated that he had to leave. He wanted to stay with her forever, to be with her. But he had to leave. Marc Grier would not have asked for him to come, unless it was critical. I’l be back soon,” he said. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Tori said, feeling truly content for the first time in a long time. And then Ethan, unable to restrain himself any longer, kissed her so passionately again that when he finished he had to inhale deeply, to catch his breath.

Ethan arrived at the hotel just outside of town where Grier, Brennan and their men were holed up. The men al greeted Ethan, and then Ethan went with Grier and Brennan out onto the balcony.

“New wrinkle, boss,” Grier said as soon as the sliding glass door was shut.

“What is it now?” Ethan asked, praying that it wouldn’t add to his already overwhelming problems.

“We believe Morton has an accomplice.”

“So what else is new? You believed that al along.”

“But we think we now know who it is,” Brennan said. Ethan waited for them to tel him. When they didn’t, he frowned.

“What is it?”

“It’s our mistake, boss,” Grier said. “I thought we had this thing pegged.”

“Marc, what are you talking about? What’s your mistake?”

Grier looked at Brennan, and then exhaled. “Sir, we believe Fred Morton’s accomplice is Victoria Douglas.”

“Tori?” Ethan asked, astounded. “You must be joking! Tori and Morton—”

“Are working together,” Grier said, “yes, sir. That’s what it looks like at this point.”

Ethan began to rub his forehead. This was spinning out of control. “But what . . . how. . . I don’t understand. Why Tori? Why would you suspect Tori?”

Again Grier looked at Brennan before answering Ethan’s question. “Her boyfriend led us to her,” he said.

Ethan frowned. “Her boyfriend? What boyfriend?”

“His name’s Bobby Rogers,” Brennan replied, puling out a pad and reading from it. “An investment banker with Stokes-Montgomery. He and Miss Douglas have had a long relationship, dating back

years.”

“Years?”

“Years. We never even considered him, however, because she had supposedly broken up with him. At least that was what she was teling her friends at CDI.”

Ethan’s heart dropped. “They’re stil together?”

“Yes, sir,” Brennan said. “Marc had some of his men folowing Miss Douglas.”

“Folowing her? Since when?”

“Since you agreed to let her be our decoy,” Grier said. “I wanted to make sure our decoy had clean hands. I didn’t want any surprises. Wel, lo’ and behold, on the morning of the trip to Florida, one of my men spot none other than Bobby Rogers at Tori’s apartment. And he was touching her.”

Ethan had to sit down before he fel down. He eased himself, as if he was a blind man in an unfamiliar place, onto one of the balcony chairs.

“So al of those tales she told her co-workers about being available, about having no man in her life, was al a ruse,” Grier continued. “They broke up, true enough, but it was al a part of the plan.”

“What plan?” Ethan asked almost uninterestedly, as if it didn’t matter anymore.

“The plan to bilk you out of milions, sir,” Grier said and Ethan looked up at him then.

Grier continued. “When we realized that Rogers was indeed stil in the frame, we folowed him after he left Tori’s place. And guess who he met up with last night?”

Ethan didn’t have to guess at al. “Morton,” he said as if he knew.

“Fred Morton, that’s right. And here’s the kicker,” Grier said and Ethan almost laughed. What, he wondered, could possibly be worse than Tori betraying him?