Sweeter Than Revenge (16 page)

Sitting in his car, he stared at it, waiting for that sense of peaceful homecoming to wash over him, but it never did. He was beginning to wonder if it ever would. One thing was painfully clear, though. It wasn’t this beautiful house’s fault that it didn’t feel like home.

Sighing, he got out of the car and went inside, using his key. Inside, the smell of paint, turpentine and oak floors greeted him. He wandered through the shadowy first floor, his footsteps echoing to the rafters. He flicked a few switches here and there, but the gleaming, never-used overhead lights remained stubbornly dark. The power still wasn’t on yet, and that was fine. It would be soon enough. Only a few more things needed to be done: the floors finished and stained, carpet laid in a couple rooms, and the stainless-steel professional appliances installed in the kitchen. And then it would be home sweet home.

Except for one thing. The most important thing.

It was time to let go of his anger. He couldn’t bring it with him and let it contaminate his new home. The past was dead and buried, and he needed to let it rest in peace. Moving into this house represented a new start for him, and he wanted it to be the beginning of the best chapter of his life. It was a time for beginnings, and he felt that same breathless excitement he’d felt the day Maria showed up at his office and took him to lunch. The day he realized life could be so much more beautiful than he’d ever realized, and that the sky was the limit with Maria’s hand in his.

He restrained himself from touching her until they’d left the building. Once they got out to the sidewalk—it was a clear, bright day, with the sky the kind of vivid blue that was a photographer’s delight—he took her hand, lacing his fingers through hers, and she laughed happily. They hurried through the crowd, staring at each other, wearing identical ecstatic grins.

“So where are you taking me for lunch?” he asked.

“To this pretty little park. Right around the corner.”

“What park?”

Instead of answering, she tugged his arm, pulling him to a hot dog stand, where peppers and onions sizzled on the griddle. “Hello,” she chirped to the hot dog guy. “I’ll have one. And some chips. Maybe a Diet Coke. Oh, and lots of onions and peppers.” Her order complete, she turned to David. “What’ll you have?”

He stared, aghast, at her.“This is my lunch? Street dogs? Botulism special?”

“Where’s your sense of adventure? Don’t tell me you live in Philadelphia and never have any of those steak sandwiches on the street.”

“Yeah, actually,” he said. “I like my digestive system just the way it is, nice and healthy, thank you.”

The vendor handed Maria her hot dog, to which she added an obscene amount of mustard. “He’ll have the same,” she told the guy, taking an enthusiastic bite of her sandwich and smearing mustard on her lips. “Lots of onions.”

David watched her, grinning like an idiot. “Who says I like onions?”

She raised one delicate brow and smirked, still chewing. “Well, don’t complain when you kiss me later that I have onion breath, okay?”

Maybe that was the moment. Right there on the corner of Fifth and Main, on a hot summer day, when she had mustard smudged on those delicious lips, maybe that was the exact moment he fell—and fell hard—for Maria. Thunderstruck, more than a little under her spell, he slowly leaned down and kissed her, taking care of the mustard problem by licking it off her lips.

Soon they were on their way again, their lunches packed into brown paper bags, and Maria took his hand and tugged him into a beautiful walled courtyard with a fountain.

“Hey,” he said, pulling up short. “This is aprivate courtyard. It belongs to this office building. Didn’t you read the sign on the gate?”

Her face crinkled with mock thoughtfulness. “Sign? Wow. No. Didn’t see it. Gosh. I’ll have to look closer the next time, huh?”

She hurried off, leaving him chuckling behind her—she was trouble, no doubt about it—and found a secluded bench under a tree. They sat, hip to hip because any further distance between them was unbearable, with squirrels and pigeons scurrying around them looking for crumbs.

“So,” he said, unwrapping and taking a bite of his spicy, beefy hot dog, “are you just really cheap? Cause, I gotta tell you, I feel like I’m being robbed over the wholelunch thing.”

Laughing, she opened her bag of chips and offered him one. “I’m not cheap. But I think you probably work too hard, and this is the most fresh air you’ll have all day. I’ll bet you don’t even stop to get lunch on days when you don’t have a lunch meeting, do you?”

They stared at each other, bemused half smiles on their faces. David savored the eerie, delicious sensation that she already knew everything important there was to know about him, and the equally thrilling knowledge that it mattered to her whether he’d had fresh air and eaten or not.

“You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?” he asked her.

“I am pretty smart.”

“Well, if you’re so smart,” he said, reaching up to smooth her bangs out of her eyes, “then how’re you going to make sure I eat dinner tonight?”

Her eyes drifted closed and she leaned her cheek into his palm. “I don’t know,” she said. “Any suggestions?”

“You could eat dinner with me.”

“Good idea.”

“Oh,” he said, rubbing his thumb over her dewy bottom lip, losing himself in her soft skin and sweetness, “but what about tomorrow night? I’ve gotta eat then, too.”

Those bright, smiling brown eyes flickered open, and, staring into them, David lost another little piece of himself. “Yeah. I’ll have to supervise your dinner tomorrow night, too, won’t I?”

“Yes,” he whispered, and kissed her.

“Well,” she said when they pulled apart, “we’ve got dinner covered, but what about breakfast?”

David’s heart skittered to a stop. There was no teasing in her eyes now, just the intense, burning hunger to know the answer to a very important question—one he’d just been asking himself.

“We need to think about this, don’t we?” he asked.

She just looked at him.

“I’m a little older than you,” he said, filtering his fingers through the hair at her temples.

“I know.”

“I’m your father’s employee.”

“I know.”

“I live in Philadelphia.”

“I know.”

“I’m not rich.”

“I don’t care.”

Flummoxed, he stared at her. Here he was, trying to warn her, and there she was, refusing to be warned. Her level, clear-eyed gaze told him a thousand things: shedid know,didn’t care, had her mind made up, and knew what she was doing, what she wanted. That thrilling, amazing, intoxicating feeling he felt whenever he was with her—whenever hethought about her—expanded, spilling over from his chest until it affected every part of his body.

He wanted her. More than he’d ever wanted anything, more than he’d known a man could want a woman. More than that, he wanted to be with her, to sit in her presence, laugh with her, and hold her hand. To find out everything there was to know about her. He didn’t want to hurt her. And, God, he didn’t want her to hurt him because he instinctively knew this woman could do him some serious damage.

“Let’s take this slow, okay?” he asked.

“David,” she said with more than a hint of incredulity in her wide, serious eyes and in her voice. “Do you really think you can resist this?”

Resist this powerful, overwhelming thing—whatever it was—between them? “No. But we’re going to take it slow anyway.”

Rolling her eyes and muttering, Maria raised her hot dog and took a disgruntled bite. After a minute he had to laugh at her obvious unhappiness, and then he took a bite of his own food. In no time at all she’d forgiven him for his pronouncement, and they were laughing and kissing again.

It was the best lunch of his life.

David felt that same excitement again, that thrill of possibility—of beautiful things to come. With Maria. Moving into the living room, he stood in front of the huge, tiled fireplace. He would celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas here, in front of a roaring fire. A couple of armchairs with pillows would be nice, and a huge tree—Scotch pine, maybe, because they smelled so good—could stand in the enormous window opposite the fireplace.

Maria, God willing, would be here with him.

The flood of memories…the moment of clarity as he’d laughed with Maria at Anastasia’s front door earlier…everything had led to this realization: living without Maria wasn’t living. Four years without her was more than enough. He needed her smile, her laugh, her strength and her love. As tortured as their renewed interactions had been these past couple days, he’d felt more joy today when she’d laughed with him than he’d felt in years. He needed more of that joy, and he wanted to give her as much happiness as she could handle. Only Maria could fill up that massive empty space inside him; if he could be content with some other woman Lord knew he’d have found her by now because he’d gone through enough of them.

He reached into his inside breast pocket, pulled out his wallet and found the wedding article. For the first time ever, he didn’t flinch when he looked at it, probably because he now knew that the woman in the picture, George Harper’s ecstatic bride, had never truly existed. Looking at it today, all he saw was sweet, young Maria, plastering a game smile on her face and trying to look happy. What had Smokey Robinson sang about “Tears of a Clown,” “Tracks of My Tears” and all that? Yeah. That’s what he saw now: a smile to hide the pain.

There’d be no more pain for Maria, not ever again from him.

He looked around and discovered that one of the construction workers had left a pack of matches on a windowsill. Striking a match, he held the article at arm’s length over the hearth and lit the corner. Smoke wafted, and then the flame really caught, incinerating Maria’s beautiful, unhappy face, chin first. He dropped the remnants onto the bricks and stamped out the fire.

Peace like he’d never known before fell over him, as though he were a newborn suckling for the first time at his mother’s breast, or a meditating yogi receiving enlightenment on a mountaintop. Feeling light and airy now without all that emotional baggage weighing him down, he strode out of his house, locking the door behind him and humming absently. First thing tomorrow he’d call the builder and instruct him to get the house ready as soon as possible so David could present it to the woman who, God willing, would live here with him.

It was time to get Maria back.

Chapter 14

Maria and Shelley walked over to the downtown Victoria’s Secret after work. When Maria held the door open for her, Shelley pulled up short and grabbed Maria’s arm.

“What’re we doing here?” Shelley gasped, her nervous gaze darting here, there and everywhere, as though she didn’t want to be spotted entering an adult theater. “I thought we were going to the spa.”

“Noooo.” Maria pulled her arm free of Shelley’s sharp little talons and pushed the woman inside the store. “When we go to the spa, we’re going to need…well, we’ll need…” Trailing off, she eyed Shelley’s shaggy brow, makeup-free face and twentieth-century hairstyle. “Several hours.” Catching sight of Shelley’s ragged cuticles as Shelley adjusted her purse strap, Maria decided to amend her answer. “Maybe all day.”

Scowling, Shelley darted over to an area of relative seclusion behind a mannequin wearing a lacy aqua thong and bra set. “We can’t shop here,” she cried. “What if we see someone from work?”

“Then they’ll think we’re sexy, sophisticated women, won’t they?” Maria turned to a nearby table overflowing with skimpy, rainbow-colored panties and looked for her size. “And that’s what we want Kwasi to think about you,isn’t it?”

“I don’t know.” Shelley shuddered, looking up and shooting her mannequin, whose prominent and perky plastic breasts were clearly visible through all the lace, a scandalized look. “This may be a bad idea.”

“Hi, ladies.” A chirpy, cheery brunette salesperson marched up and gave them a winning smile. “How’re we doing over here? Finding everything okay?”

“Oh, good,” Maria said. “You’re just in time. We’ve got a lot to do. Shelley’s going to need new bras, panties and a garter belt with stockings. Or maybe some of those lacy thigh-highs.”

Shelley’s eyes widened; she couldn’t have looked more scandalized if Maria had asked for handcuffs, a whip and a jar of chocolate sauce.

“Right over here,” the saleswoman said. “I have just the thing.”

Shelley grabbed Maria’s arm again as the woman hurried off, and Maria snatched it away. “What’s the problem, Shelley?” she snapped, a little tired of being manhandled.

“First of all, I’m not made of money, okay?” Shelley cried, ticking off her points on her fingers. “Second, I’m not wearing no garter, and third, it’ll be a while—if ever—before Kwasi sees me in my draws, so why do I need all this stuff?”

Oh, yes. A fashion and attitude intervention was definitely in order for young Shelley, Maria decided. “Why? I’ll tell you why. Because you walk around like a big schlub.” Maria pulled a dour face, hunched her shoulders and clomped around in a circle.

Shelley cringed. “I do not—”

“You’re a pretty woman, but who’d ever know it? Why don’t you smile once every six months or so? Give it a try, why don’t you? See if your face likes it.”

Shelley’s jaw flapped uselessly and Maria took advantage of the silence.

“You’ve gotta act like you think you’re sexy, Shelley. You need to start on the inside,with your attitude. If you wear sexy lingerie, you’ll feelsexier. You’ll have more confidence. You’ll smile more and attract people to you. Trust me. You’ll see. Anyway, if youdon’t think you’re sexy, who else will?”

Shelley, belligerent to the end, wasn’t about to go down without a fight. “Who says I don’t think I’m sexy?”

“Shelley,” Maria said, exasperated and impatient now. “I’m going to ask you one question. If I’mright, you’re going to do whatever I say, with no more questions asked. If you’reright, I’ll apologize, and we’ll leave this store right now and never come back.”

Glowering, Shelley crossed her arms over her chest. “What’s the question?”

“Right now, you’re wearing a white cotton bra and white cotton bloomers that are more than five years old, aren’t you?”

Shelley’s mouth dropped open and her cheeks flamed.

“That’s what I thought,” Maria said with triumph. “I rest my case.”

Just then the saleswoman returned with an armful of lingerie in several colors. “Here we are. This’ll get us started.”

“Wonderful.” Maria took the items and shoved them at Shelley, who still looked flabbergasted and sheepish. “You’ll feel like a new woman in no time,” Maria told her. “Trust me.”

Huffing, Shelley stomped off toward the back of the store. “Just remember,” she called over her shoulder. “Tomorrow, I’llbe the teacher, and you’llbe the student. And you’ll be at mymercy then, sister. First thing on the agenda—how to write press releases.”

“I can hardly wait,” Maria muttered, checking her watch. “Hurry up, okay? I’ve got something else I need to do tonight.”

Shelley grunted and disappeared into a changing room.

Maria wandered over to another rack. After a minute of riffling, she discovered a short, beautiful white robe, so silky and fine it would no doubt feel like wearing a cloud. She had the wayward thought that the old David would have loved to see her in something so sheer and sexy, but she shoved it out of her mind and ignored the wincing of her poor, battered heart. What David loved or didn’t love was none of her concern, and never would be again.

Still…sheloved the robe.

Though it was way out of her new, lower, price range, she picked it up and took it to the checkout area. Sometimes the best thing for a broken heart was something new and pretty.

David caught himself looking for Maria’s car as he pulled into Ellis’s driveway at seven, but then he remembered that the Jag was gone forever. Some of his newfound happiness dimmed, and he wondered where she was and whether she’d taken a cab again. He’d practically begged her to accept a ride home with him, and she’d politely refused. Perverse idiot that he was, he actually admired her stubborn pride and strength. She’d land on her feet, of course. She always did. He couldn’t wait to see how.

He’d just climbed out of his car, grabbed his briefcase, slung his jacket over his shoulder and started to walk up the path to the house, when he heard a sleek, powerful engine rev behind him. Turning, he saw a cute little red Toyota Prius hybrid, headlights blazing, dart up the driveway and stop. To his utter astonishment, Maria was behind the wheel.

Shell-shocked, he was dimly aware of the door to the house opening and Ellis appearing beside him. The men exchanged drop-jawed glances, then watched as Maria emerged, triumphant, from the car. She hitched her purse over her shoulder and strutted toward them with the long-legged confidence of a runway model.

“Like my new car?” she asked, a fire in her eye and a cocky half smile on her lips.

David and Ellis gaped at her.

Laughing, she tossed the keys high in the air as she brushed past them and through the door. “Feel free to take it for a spin, okay? It’s a lot of fun to drive.”

She disappeared into the house and David recovered enough to snatch the keys from midair before they impaled him through the skull. He and Ellis stared at each other for an arrested moment. Ellis looked so wide-eyed and flabbergasted that David couldn’t help it. He exploded with laughter.

Ellis blinked slowly, and then he laughed, too. “Shoulda known,” he said, shaking his head.

David hadknown. Maria couldn’t be kept down. Not for long, anyway. Awe swelled in his chest, and he only hoped she’d left the poor salesman at the dealership with the shirt on his back when she was done with him. David didn’t doubt that she’d driven a hard bargain for herself, and he couldn’t wait to ask about her adventure. She was some woman. The only woman for him.

Happy again, he tossed and caught the keys as he headed toward the Prius, which he’d always wanted to drive. “Come on,” he told Ellis. “I’ll drive first.”

Once again, Maria skipped dinner, much to David’s disappointment. He kept his ears peeled, though, and when she went out to the spotlit pool at about nine-thirty, he threw on his swimming trunks and T-shirt and followed her as far as the veranda. Frozen with excitement, he stood out of her line of sight and watched her swim laps. He breathed deeply, allowing himself to relax and enjoy the grounds for the beautiful slice of heaven that they were.

The full moon bathed him with enough light to read by. A gentle breeze, fragrant with more flowers than he could name, fluttered the leaves on the trees. Strategically placed pots overflowed with flowers, and classical piano music—Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata,” he thought—piped in through invisible speakers and soothed his scared soul.

He was about to put his feelings on the line here, to give Maria enormous power over him and his future, and he couldn’t remember when he’d felt this nervous and edgy. What if he told her how he felt, she nodded politely, looked at him with those cool eyes and said no thanks?His guts roiled at the thought. What the hell would he do then? He’d rather take a self-guided tour of Baghdad than face Maria’s rejection. But he’d do anything—anything—he needed to do to get her back. If that meant enduring her scorn and rejection a few times, well, that was the price he’d have to pay for being stupid enough to let her go in the first place. This whole screwed-up situation was his fault, anyway. It was about time he started rectifying things.

Saying a quick, silent prayer, he trotted down the steps, threw his towel on a lounge chair and waited while Maria swam back from the far end of the pool, her powerful butterfly stoke slicing rhythmically through the water. Maybe she’d finally worn herself out, because she slowed and then stopped, resting her elbows on the pool’s ledge as she smoothed her hair out of her face and tried to catch her breath. When she didn’t see him right away, he cleared his throat and she jumped.

“Hey,” he said.

Not since that poor drunk skinny-dipper encountered the shark in Jawshad he seen a woman look so terrified in the water. For the longest time she didn’t move, just stared up at him with wide, shocked eyes.

“Hi.”

Well, she’d spoken to him, so that was good. Maybe he should press his luck a little and see whether it held. “How’s the water?”

“Still wet. What’re you doing here?”

“Swimming. Duh.”

Holding her gaze, he grabbed the bottom edge of his T-shirt and pulled it off over his head. His exhibitionist tendencies were rewarded when he heard her sharp gasp over the lapping water. She stared, as he’d known she would. Those flashing eyes slid over his shoulders and chest, down past his belly to his crotch and legs, and suddenly all those early mornings at the gym seemed like the best investment he’d ever made. Taking advantage of her distraction, he walked to the edge of the pool and sat right next to her, his thighs brushing her upper arms as he dangled his legs in the water.

She didn’t like the contact, or maybe she liked it too much. Either way, she moved down a little, out of touching range. “Since when do you swim?” she snapped.

“Maria, Maria,” he said, tsking. “Are you always this rude to guests?”

Glaring, she crossed her arms over her chest and blocked what had been a truly spectacular view of full breasts and the tantalizing outline of nipples down the front of her black tank suit.

“When, ah, when are you moving, anyway? Anytime soon?”

He shrugged. “Funny you should ask. I stopped by my house on the way home from work, and it’s almost ready. But I’m not so anxious to move away from here.”

Something in his deadly serious expression must have thrown her off guard, because she froze, barely breathing as she watched him. Taking advantage again, he slid into the cool water, his side gently brushing past hers as he did.

This seemed to be too much for her. Flattening her palms on the concrete, she heaved herself out of the pool. “I’m getting in the spa,” she said over her shoulder.

She was gone in a flash of movement and a splash of water, leaving him to stare after her and wonder when anyone had ever been quite this anxious to get away from him. But soon the staring overtook the wondering, and he watched her, his blood heating despite the cool water, and his groin, apparently unaware of the shrinkagefactor, throbbing to life.

David kept waiting for the day when he looked at Maria and no longer wanted her, but he doubted that day would ever come. Right now, for example, she wasn’t looking her best in that utilitarian and unsexy bathing suit, which was no doubt designed for Olympic swimmers and lifeguards. The ugly suit didn’t matter one iota to his overheated flesh, though. She wore no makeup, but her skin still glowed like gold. She currently had drowned-rat hair, but he still wanted it fisted in his hands. Her butt and thighs were a little lusher than they’d been four years ago, but he would still give his right arm to bury himself between those sweet thighs and squeeze that round butt.

Maria’s hypnotic allure was stronger than it’d ever been before.

She marched several feet to the spa’s raised platform, shot him a death glare and climbed in. He waited until she’d settled into the swirling water, leaned her head back against the ledge, closed her eyes and sighed deeply, before he got out of the pool and followed her.

Those dark eyes—panicked now—flew open, no doubt ruining whatever momentary relaxation she may have felt, not that he cared. Openmouthed, she watched his approach, her gaze drifting lower…and lower…not that he cared about that, either, although he doubted she could see much considering how baggy his black board shorts were. Settling into the warm, pulsing water—ah, nirvana—he gave her a half smile, which was all he could manage with his senses on overload.