Drake lay on the filthy bed, counting the cracks in the ceiling, telling himself to get up, get going, yet he lay unmoving on the dirty bed. Why did the thought of going back to New York and living under enhanced security conditions make him feel already dead and buried?
He couldn’t get his muscles into gear. He had the strength, but not the heart. For the first time in his life, he had no desire to get going. His chest felt hollow, empty, as if his heart had been ripped out, leaving a gaping hole.
Whatever he decided—move forward to the new life or fall back on the old—he needed to decide fast.
But he couldn’t move. He lay on his back, watching the lights of the passing cars outside the window, flumes of water thrown up by their tires, listening to the sleety rain pounding at the thin window pane, and tried to find it in himself to care enough to get going.
Nothing worked. He lay, thinking of nothing, feeling nothing, wanting nothing, hardly breathing as the clock in his head marked half an hour, an hour.
A heavy vehicle braked recklessly outside the motel room in a shower of gravel. A door slammed. A few moments later, the motel room door opened and Grace rushed in, arms full of packages.
She was pale, exhausted, completely soaked. Dumping the packages on the chair, she rushed to his bedside, placing a hand on his forehead.
“You’re awake. Thank God. I hated leaving you unconscious, but you needed medicine and we needed warm clothes and some food.”
Drake angled his body up on his elbows.
Grace. By some miracle, Grace was here. Tired and bedraggled and worried looking and more beautiful than ever. Oh God, she was here.
“Came…back,” he managed to choke out through a tight throat.
She threw him a wry glance, hands busy pulling things out of paper bags. Gauze, disinfectant, bandages, cheap warm clothing. From one paper bag came the enticing smell of hamburgers. “Yes, I made it, without killing anyone, too. I know I’m a lousy driver, you don’t have to rub it in. I’ve never owned a car and—” She stopped, sucking in a shocked breath, turning her head to study him, a frown between her eyebrows. “Oh my God. You don’t mean that. Oh, Drake.” She sat abruptly on the bed, as if her legs wouldn’t support her anymore, hand cupping his jaw. “Oh, my darling, you thought I wasn’t coming back at all.” She studied his eyes and he dropped his. “You thought I’d abandoned you.”
He couldn’t speak. He could barely breathe. Tight bands constricted his chest, clutched his heart, squeezing.
Now that his head was higher, he could see that the trolley was still completely full of money. She’d only taken enough to make the purchases.
Oh God. Surely she would leave now. He’d just dealt her a monstrous insult, how could she stay? He couldn’t even open his mouth to beg her forgiveness, because every muscle he had was locked down in pain and sorrow. He could barely breathe through the constriction in his chest.
The room was utterly silent except for the pinging of sleet against the panes and the far-off hiss of tires on the wet road.
“My darling,” Grace whispered, her other hand cupping the back of his head. She bent forward until her forehead touched his. “Know this. I will never leave you. I couldn’t. I love you.”
Drake turned his head, nestling against her, nose in that glorious hair. She smelled of woman and smoke. He wanted to clutch her to him, but his hands wouldn’t move. They were shaking.
He was shaking.
A huge ball of something, some violent emotion, was working its way up his chest and throat, like sharp knives slicing him open from the inside out. He opened his mouth to let it out. It sounded like a sob, but that couldn’t be.
Except his cheeks were cold. Something was making them wet.
His battered brain took several minutes to realize that, for the first time in his adult life, he was crying.
Rome
December 2
Grace leaned against the stone balustrade of the luxurious apartment at the top of the Spanish Steps, drinking in the glory of a Roman sunset. Though it was December, the evening was balmy, the setting sun somehow bigger and redder than any sun that had ever set over Manhattan.
From Florida they’d flown to Montenegro in a luxury jet that was like a boutique hotel room. During the flight, Drake started healing right in front of her eyes. Almost hour by hour, he improved.
She’d been so frightened on the horrific drive down to Tampa. Drake had been barely conscious, bleeding from multiple wounds and, worst of all, dazed and disoriented. For a horrific moment, she had thought he might actually die.
And yet, by the time they’d landed in Montenegro, been taken across the Adriatic in a speedboat to land north of Bari with a Mercedes waiting, he felt well enough to take the wheel. Grace had made a token protest, but he’d simply looked at her with a crooked smile, holding the passenger door open. She’d slid inside with a sigh of relief. She hated to drive. The nightmare journey to Florida through a storm with a wounded man beside her had been horrible enough. Driving in Italy? No thanks.
Trust Drake to find the most sumptuous apartment in Rome, across the street from the Hassler Hotel, at the top of the Spanish Steps. She’d gasped as they walked in, the Roman skyline glittering just beyond the enormous terrace. The travertine-stone lintel over the huge one-story carved wooden street door had had a coat of arms with 1537 engraved on it. A Renaissance palazzo, with a penthouse apartment that seemed to be theirs, frescoes and all.
She’d been worried about the toll all this travel was taking on Drake. The evening they arrived in Rome, Drake had come naked out of the huge marble bathroom, having taken the stitches in his shoulder out himself. He put a finger to her lips before she could say anything. “It’s okay, my love,” he’d said. Then kissed her.
A naked Drake kissing her…she could barely remember her own name after that.
She’d wanted to see Rome and he’d taken her, everywhere she wanted to go. Dressed in a long cashmere coat, which managed to mask his unusually strong physique, and a black watchcap pulled low over his forehead, with wraparound sunglasses and dark stubble blurring the line of his jaw, he passed unnoticed in the crowd, almost unrecognizable even to her.
This was her time, he made that clear. They did what she wanted, went where she wanted, saw what she wanted. She lost herself so much in Raphael’s La Fornarina at the National Gallery that the guards had to shoo them out at closing time. When with a start Grace realized she’d kept Drake standing for over three hours while she mooned over a painting by Titian at the Borghese Gallery, she started to apologize.
“Did you enjoy that, duschka?” he asked. “Did it make you happy?”
“Oh yes,” she breathed.
“Then I’m happy, too,” he said simply.
He stood quietly by her side as she spent an entire morning at the Sistine Chapel, his dark eyes taking everything in. Though he knew very little about art, Grace wouldn’t have been surprised if he were now able to describe from memory each and every one of the hundreds of paintings she’d dragged him to see.
It was all so…liberating. All her life, she’d had to disguise how passionately she loved classical art. Most people could get a little worked up about modern art, the trendier and more expensive the better, but classical art…bleh.
And of course, conversely, she had to feign an interest in the things most people were crazy about—money, fashion and gossip.
With Drake, Grace didn’t have to hide any aspect of her nature. After a couple of days, she was surprised to find that she was even unconsciously standing straighter, and realized she had lived her life slightly hunched, waiting for disapproval. Not with Drake. She could be herself, completely, and he loved it.