“I’m a grown woman,” she said, squeezing back until her knuckles whitened; he didn’t seem to notice. “And these are my choices. You’re wonderful to worry … it’s more than I deserve. But tomorrow you’re going to do what you need to do—and I will, too. And either way, Lillith will be safe. And no matter what, I’ll never be sorry we met. Just sorry about the manner of it.”
“Please stop the hits.” He leaned forward and rested his forehead on her shoulder, and she was amazed to feel him shaking.
“I can’t.” No. That was a lie. “I won’t,” she clarified. “But I don’t think you’re giving me enough credit. I’ve never even come close to getting caught. They can’t say anything, you know. They’re trapped.” Like I was.
“You don’t do it very often.”
“No, I’m not greedy. Two, three times a year, max. Only once last year.” Usually they were smart. Usually they gave in. Usually that was enough … until the next time.
He nodded. “Okay. I mean—that’s not great, but it’s something. And maybe you’ll change your mind. Maybe you’ll retire.”
“Maybe,” she said, and thought, Doubt it. But hell, if it’ll make you feel better. Then a thought struck her. “Okay, so you found my spreadsheets and even looked through a couple. You didn’t also by any chance—”
“Yeah, I looked at your porn.” Finally, a smile. “Assablanca? Really?”
“You shut up!” she cried, then burst into giggles. Rake cracked up, too, and she was so relieved she’d made him laugh, she decided just to be mortified, not mortified and furious. “It was a gift from a friend. I swear!”
“Sure it was,” he managed, then laughed harder.
“I refuse to apologize for being interested in terrible porn!”
“Which is yet another reason I adore you.”
Well. He was sweet to say it, even if it had to be a lie. Then he started tickling her, and then she showed him a thing or two about pressure points and leverage, and before long their giggles had faded and they were hot and panting and needing each other, and soon enough
(too long took too long)
he was inside her again, filling her up with that glorious cock, and she was clutching him to her while her heels dug into his back and he murmured, “You’re glorious, God, you’re so wonderful,” and she very determinedly did not think about tomorrow.
Forty-three
She woke up once, reached for him, started to panic.
“Shhh. I’m right here. I had to make a couple of phone calls.”
“Oh.”
“It’s okay. Not going anywhere now ’til morning.”
Morning, she thought with despair, and snuggled back up to him.
* * *
There was a firm knock at the door, and Delaney extricated her limbs from Rake’s—three bouts of sex had done the man in; he was snoring like a lumberjack with a head cold—grabbed the hotel robe out of the closet, and called, “Who is it?”
“It’s me.”
Oh. Fuck. “Rake!” she whispered. “Wake up.”
Nope. Too busy snoring.
“Rake!” She kicked the bed. “Rake, you gotta wake up now.” No time to get dressed. No time to think up a plausible—
You know what? Fuck it.
“Hnnn? ’Laney? S’wrong?”
“Everything,” she said, and opened the door.
The older woman was impeccably dressed in a yellow tweed suit with a cream-colored blouse, sensible flesh-colored panty hose, and sturdy brown shoes. Her hair was blond and silver and pulled back. Her eyes were Rake’s.
They measured each other. “Nice to meet you in person, dear.”
“Yeah,” she said, but really, it wasn’t. Nice was the wrong word. She stepped back from the door and turned toward the bed. Rake was on his feet, focused on wrapping the sheet around his waist. The early-morning sunlight gleamed in his chest hair.
Gleamed in his chest hair? Get ahold of yourself, woman.
“Rake, I know this is going to seem impossible, but this is my client. She’s—”
“Hi, Nonna Tarbell.” Rake, now wrapped like a burrito, crossed the room and pulled the nuclear option into a hug. “What took you so long?”
Thank goodness for the robe, because all the strength went out of Delaney’s arms. She’d have dropped a sheet. Or her pants. Rake, however, was in no danger of flashing either of them, more’s the pity. “No,” she said. “You couldn’t have.” The password was one thing, but this?
“You did,” Nonna Tarbell said, beaming. “So smart. Both of my boys. Thank heavens you took after your mother in that department. And—ahem.” She cast a pointed look toward their dishabille, and the rumpled bed. “No more hide-a-bed, hmm?”
“That’s none of your business,” she snapped.
“I can see why you’d think that,” the older woman said with an approving nod.
“She’s right, Nonna. It’s none of your business. Just like what we do with our dad’s money is none of your business, and the fact that we aren’t married is none of your business, and—”
“I may have overstepped,” she began, but Rake cut her off.
“I love you, but I could strangle you. You know Blake’s in a mess, too, right? Of course you do. You put him there.”
“It was only—”
“Only bullshit.” He just looked at her, the old woman with his eyes, the one who had hired Delaney to keep an eye on him, take care of him when he realized he was out of money, steer him toward charitable work, help him become a better man.
You picked the wrong bitch for that job, Delaney thought.
“You were always waiting for us to fail,” Rake said simply, and his grandmother went pale. Her eyes filled, but the tears didn’t fall. “You keep waiting for our father to come out. But he’s dead, Nonna. We’re our own men, like it or not. We never even met him, and never will. You’re the one haunting us. Not him.”
“How’d you even guess?” Delaney asked. She felt sorry for the nuclear option, and decided to pull Rake’s focus back on her. The woman was a meddler, but she’d acted out of love and concern, which was more than Claire could say about her own motivation. “The password thing I get—he guessed my password!” she added, unable to keep the admiration out of her tone. “But out of all the people on the planet who could have hired me, how’d you guess it was your grandma?”
He went to the bedside table, picked up his phone, glanced at the time. Odd—were they going somewhere? Did he have an appointment? Then he said, “Can I get dressed? And how about breakfast?” He shot a look at his grandmother that Delaney prayed would never be directed at her. “You’re buying.”
“Of course, darling. I’d like to hear those answers myself.”
Bemused—whatever Delaney had dreaded about the morning, she hadn’t expected this—Delaney went to find her clothes.
Forty-four
“First off, the friendly lady I met in Lake Como, and again in Venice, just happened to have a set of clothes in my size?”