Sacrifice (13 page)

Gerard shut the car door behind him. “Good night, Miss Beauvoir,” Gerard said as he dipped his head to me.

The black town car pulled away from the curb and headed down Royal Street. I glanced about the empty street hoping Dallas had seen me leave the party. I gathered my black shawl about my shoulders and took in a deep breath. The evening had not turned out as I had expected. I thought espionage would be exciting. But tonight had been nothing more than what I had already experienced in my life, powerful people using their influence to manipulate others. Growing up in New Orleans society, I had always known people like Greg Caston. It seemed my world was no different than his. I guess no matter where you go there will always be those who use sex and money to bend others to their will. It’s the method used for attaining such surrender, and not the motive, that separates a criminal from a king.

Off to the side of the street I noticed a tall man approaching me. I waited for the man’s face to emerge from the shadows. I was expecting to see Dallas, but as the man closed in, a twinge of disbelief took hold inside of me. The way he moved with such an air of confidence seemed vaguely familiar to me. But when his face became illuminated by the surrounding streetlights, I gasped in disbelief.

My body was overtaken by a paralyzing cold when I saw that face. My heart leapt into my throat and my head started to spin. I could feel my nerves winding up like a tornado inside of me. I wanted to scream but my voice became paralyzed. As the figure moved closer, I realized that this was not some cloudy mist that filled the night air; the man before me was real and made of flesh and bone. I gawked up into his face as his gray eyes greeted mine.

“
David?” I cried out to the man standing before me.

“
Hello, Nicci.”

Chapter
Nine

As I stood and stared up into those warm gray eyes my whole body turned into wet spaghetti. I could not move or even breathe. I hoped I was hallucinating. I tightly closed my eyes and wished the apparition away. But when I opened my eyes, I found myself looking up into the face of a man I had thought lost to me forever.

His jaw was wide and his pale, smooth skin was pulled taut over high cheekbones. His lips were thin and gave his mouth the look of a constant sarcastic grin. The nose was long, straight, and came to a point. Then I noticed the thin white scar on his left temple. It was about four inches long and ran from the top of his lower jaw up into his hairline. I stood there transfixed as I stared at the scar, took in the face, and compared everything before me with the memory of the man he had been. He shifted on his feet, and then I looked into his sparkling gray eyes.

I closed my eyes again and whispered, “I’m just tired. That’s all it is.”

“
I’m real, Nicci,” a deep, warm voice said over me.

I opened my eyes and realized that this was no stress-induced vision. Suddenly, the air vanished around me and my stomach clenched. My mind filled with a thousand thoughts at once. I was angry, elated, heartbroken, confused, upset, every emotion that has been catalogued in the human psyche burst into my head and overloaded my body.

I started trembling as I pointed to him. “But you’re dead!” I croaked. “You’re supposed to be dead!”

“
Do I look dead, Nicci?” David asked as he leaned back from me.

I reached out and poked him with my finger.

“
Convinced?” he questioned.

I immediately pulled my hand away.

“
You’re alive!” I screamed. “You stinking, worthless, lying, son of a bitch.” I reached up and slapped him as hard as I could across the face. “Three Goddamn years, David Alexander. It’s been three years since you died and now you decide to resurrect yourself. Not a word, not a damned note, a phone call, nothing to let me know that you were alive. And tonight you just walk up to me, out of the blue, without any warning.”

David nursed his red cheek with his hand. “Jesus Christ, Nicci!”

“
He only took three days to rise from the dead. You’ve taken three Goddamn years! Where in the hell have you been? Do you know what I have been through? Do you know what losing you did to me? I thought I meant something to you. You conceited piece of shit! How could you do that to me?” I punched him as hard as I could in the arm.

A look of disbelief overtook his features as he stepped back from me. “Stop hitting me! What the hell is the matter with you?” He rubbed his hand over his left jaw. “Fifteen reconstructive surgeries on my jaw and face, and you hit me right where it hurts,” he bellowed.

“
You’d better start explaining, David. Where in the hell have you been for the past three years?” I screamed.

“
Nicci, would you calm down! Ever since your ex-fiancé shot me and left me for dead on the side of the road, I have been trying to get back to you. There are a lot of reasons why I’ve had to stay away. None of which I can go into right now.”

Suddenly, I became acutely aware of who was standing before me. “This can’t be happening,” I whispered.

David stepped toward me. “Would slapping my other cheek convince you that I’m real?”

“
But you can’t be real.” I felt my lower lip begin to quiver. “Everyone said you were dead. I identified your body in the morgue. I buried you. I…” My knees suddenly gave way as I gasped for breath after breath. “David died. You’re not David…Can’t be David…” I kept mumbling as my body sank to the cold cement beneath my feet.

Then there was a rush of warmth around me as arms pulled me close and the familiar scent of someone, once thought gone from my life, filled my senses. I struggled to look up and fought to clear my vision through the cascade of tears.

“
Nicci, I’m David. I’m here,” his deep voice murmured into my cheek.

As the fog before my eyes cleared, David came into focus. He was pale and thin but alive, and kneeling beside me. When the light from a nearby street lamp revealed his face, it was then that I got a good look at the damage Michael’s bullet had done.

His features looked normal but the proportions were slightly off. His right jaw looked larger and more squared in shape than the left. His left jaw still appeared puffy and the cheekbone on the left side of his face was a little more sunken than its counterpart on the right. The left temple had a slight depression between the jaw and hairline, right above his scar. I reached up and ran my fingers gently along his left temple. His eyes never wavered from mine and when my fingers reached his cheek, he covered my hand with his and smiled. I carefully ran my hand over his face and down his neck feeling the warmth of his flesh beneath my fingertips. Then I saw the tracheotomy scar at the base of his throat.

“
My God, what did he do to you?” I whispered to him as I lowered my head and fought back my tears.

David reached under my chin and tilted my face to his. “It’s not so bad. I can talk, walk, eat, and best of all I’m here with you,” he said in his Irish tinged accent.

“
What happened David? Where have you been? Why didn’t you contact me? I could have helped you. I could have been there for you.”

David sighed. “There are a lot of things I have to tell you.” He reached for my hand and pulled me up from the ground. He looked back down the empty street and then eased me into a nearby darkened doorway. “Look, I don’t have much time,” he whispered anxiously.

“
When they told me you were dead, I kept thinking it was some kind of mistake. But I thought that was you in the morgue, and if that wasn’t you, who was it?”

“
I’m not sure. There are a lot of pieces to this puzzle that I’m still trying to put together.” He paused and ran his hand through his wavy, brown hair. “I know it’s been a long time and these past three years must have been hell for you, just like they have been for me, but I want you to know that I never stopped thinking of you.”

“
David, I need to know where you have been. Please tell me.”

He gazed back at me, frowning. “I can’t, not now. Trying to explain where I have been for the past three years could take quite a while, and you need to get back. Dallas is a very suspicious man. If you don’t get back to Val’s place soon, he will send out the entire New Orleans Police Department to search for you.”

Dallas. The name on David’s lips made my insides curdle.

“
You know about Dallas?” I softly asked.

David said nothing and simply nodded.

“
And how did you know I was at Val’s?”

He placed his hands about my face. “I have been keeping watch over you for quite a while.” He leaned over and tenderly kissed my forehead.

The touch of his lips against my skin sent a shudder through me. I closed my eyes and silently cursed him. Three years gone, and in less than five minutes, he had my body reacting to his slightest touch. But I used the anger still churning inside of me to steady myself against him. I could not let him back into my good graces so easily. He had stayed away. He had watched me start a new relationship with another man, and he had done nothing. I thought I had once known everything there was to know about David Alexander, but in that moment I realized I was wrong. What kind of man could stand by and let the woman he loved go off with another? Doubt began to gnaw at my feelings and I could not help but wonder if the love we had once shared had been genuine. I looked up into David’s eyes and for the first time, I saw an unfamiliar glint of coldness there. Something I had never seen before.

I took a step back from him. “You have a lot of explaining to do, David.”

He grimaced. “Before you forgive me?”

I raised my head. “Before I could ever consider trusting you again.”

“
Trust me? I’m glad to see you haven’t changed.” He shook his head and gave a frustrated sigh. “Nicci, I didn’t choose to leave you. If Michael hadn’t come along things would have turned out a whole lot better for us. And I hope one day you will understand why I have had to stay away. But I want you to know that I didn’t come back to explain my whereabouts to you. I came back for you. And once we have aired our grievances about the past, then I will expect us to pick up where we left off.”

My jaw dropped. “You arrogant, condescending, chauvinistic, asshole! I can’t believe you just said that to me. After all the hell you have put me through. You’ve betrayed me, David, twice! You lied to me and then ran away to New York. Now you come back from—”

“
Are you finished?” he asked, cutting me off.

“
Do you think I could just forgive you for everything and what…hop in bed with you?”

“
Yes,” he said firmly. David grinned as his gray eyes inspected my black gown. “I remember the last time I saw you in that dress. It was the night of Val’s engagement party for you and Michael. I returned to you that night after my hasty departure to New York. You forgave me then. I can’t believe you won’t try and forgive me now.”

I stood there fuming. I wanted to reach out and blot out the smug grin from his face. I felt my resolve harden against him. I folded my arms over my chest and stared at him.

“
Don’t you think for one moment that I will ever be the same woman you once—”

He moved closer to me, silencing my tirade. “Nicci, stop trying to push me away. We both know that nothing has changed between us.”

I shook my head and looked away. “But things have changed, David. I can’t just pick up with you again without any consideration to…I have others to consider.”

“
Are we talking about Dallas?”

I turned back to him and nodded.

He opened his mouth to speak but hesitated for a moment. “Do you love him?” he eventually asked.

I caught sight of David’s eyes and felt the weight of my emotions bear down on my heart.

“
Dallas wants to marry me. We’ve made plans for our future together.”

“
Plans aren’t love, Nicci. All the plans in the world won’t make up for the emptiness inside of your heart. The question is which one of us fills that emptiness? Me or Dallas?” He paused and I felt the seconds tick by as he carefully studied my features. “Meet me tomorrow morning at the Corner Café on Royal. You remember the place,” he asserted.

I nodded. “Where we went for coffee. Yes, I remember.”

“
Come tomorrow at nine. I will answer all of your questions then.” He looked nervously out into the street. “You need to go.” He took my hand and led me from the doorway.

We stepped onto the sidewalk and were immediately greeted by a rush of cool night air. I could hear the echoes of people laughing and somewhere in the distance Jazz music was being played.

“
Go home, Nicci,” he ordered as he let go of my hand.

“
Wait a minute!” I exclaimed, raising my voice. “That’s it. You show yourself to me and expect me to go back home like nothing’s happened. We need to talk and—”

“
Tomorrow, we will talk,” David interjected. “But you must go now, Nicci. Go back to Dallas and say nothing of tonight.”

“
Trust me that me that won’t be a problem. He already thinks…never mind.” I took a step away and looked back at David. “I will see you tomorrow at nine. Right?” I asked, suddenly feeling anxious about leaving him.

He nodded. “I will see you then. Now go home before Dallas comes looking for you. I don’t need another jealous fiancé wanting to kill me.” He grinned. “Dallas, unlike Michael, never misses.”