He raised the mug to his lips. “A while.”
“I thought you didn’t hit it off.”
He took a long drink, then said, “We didn’t. When I dropped her off, she invited me in for coffee and I went in.”
Lucy stood. “When I invited you into my house for coffee, you turned me down.”
“That’s because I wanted to do you in every documented position and a few I’d made up.” He set down the mug and moved toward her. “But I was wired for sound and couldn’t even let you touch me.”
“What?” Lucy held out her hand like a traffic cop. “You wore a wire? When?”
“When we were together.”
“Every time?” She dropped her hand to one hip.
He stopped a few feet in front of her. “Yeah. You didn’t make any embarrassing confessions if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Her mind moved from date to date and landed on that night in the hall. Her hands had been all over him. “Where was the wire the night I was supposed to kill you?”
He folded his arms across his bare chest, and his face set in that expression she’d come to recognize. The one that told her he didn’t want to answer her. She folded her arms and waited him out. Finally he said, “I wasn’t wearing one that night.”
“Where was it?” Lucy asked, although she had a fairly good guess. She didn’t believe for a second that the police had gone to the trouble of setting her up but hadn’t wired the house for sound. She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought about it before-it was so obvious. Maybe because she’d had other things on her mind.
“There were digital recorders hidden in the kitchen, living room, and my bedroom.”
She tried to remember what she’d said that night and couldn’t. She turned away and placed a hand to her forehead. Her heart sped up and her face got hot. What had the police heard? “My God, that night…when my shirt was off and your hand…what were we saying…what-”
“No one could hear anything.” Quinn grabbed her arm and turned her around to face him. “That’s why I carried you into the hall. I didn’t want anyone to hear us. I wanted you all to myself without anyone watching.”
Lucy felt her speeding heart stop. “Watching?”
He leaned his head back and covered his face with his hands. “Shit.”
“There were video cameras?”
“Yeah.” He dropped his hands to his sides.
“Oh my God!” She pulled the lapels of the robe close around her throat and tightened the belt. “Where were the cameras?”
“The audio and video surveillance were in the air purifier in the kitchen, in a fake clock on the mantel in the living room, and in a clock radio beside my bed.”
She thought back on that night. They’d never made it to his bedroom. They’d eaten dinner in the kitchen, and in the living room they’d kissed and he’d taken off her sweater. She gasped and shoved at his bare chest. “How could you do that to me?”
“Lucy.” He grasped the tops of her arms. “I’m sorry. We thought…I thought you were Breathless. We thought that if you-”
“How many people were watching?”
“Two. Kurt and Anita were in a van outside.”
Lucy thought back and could recall seeing a van parked on the opposite side of the street. Two people had been in that van watching him undress her and touch her breasts. She was horrified. “Oh God. Oh God, and there’s a tape?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Evidence room, I would imagine.”
“How many people have seen it?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.” She tried to pull away, but his grasp tightened. “It isn’t that bad.”
“Have you seen it?”
“No, but the cameras couldn’t see down the hall.”
This time when she pulled away, he let her go. Lucy looked into his handsome face and felt the backs of her eyes sting. She refused to cry. Inside her, anger and humiliation gave way to a deeper feeling of utter betrayal. It didn’t matter that Quinn hadn’t had a choice. He’d set her up, and now there was a videotape of him taking off her sweater and touching her breasts. It was out there. Somewhere. For strange men to see. “I have to get out of here,” she said and walked around him. Even in her misery, she wasn’t going to act recklessly. “I’ll take you up on that offer to move cops into my house.” In a daze, she left the room. Maybe she could get the tapes somehow. Maybe if she called a lawyer, she could make the police give them to her.
She walked into the spare bedroom and tossed her empty suitcase on the bed. She’d call first thing tomorrow morning.
“Lucy.”
She turned and looked at him standing in the doorway. A dark lock of hair fell over his forehead as his dark gaze stared into her. After everything, there was a part of her that wanted to throw herself against his bare chest and forget what he’d done. He could make her forget about everything for the few moments he held her. She loved him, and she wished she’d never met him.
“Promise me you won’t leave until after I get back.”
Once again she felt humiliated and heartbroken and all because she’d made the mistake of loving Quinn.
“Promise me,” he repeated.
She supposed he needed to get the security in place at her house before she returned there. “Fine.”
“Promise,” he insisted.
“Cross my heart.” Once again she’d been a fool where he was concerned.
Lucy turned her back on him and unzipped the suitcase she’d unpacked the night before. She heard him move down the hall, and a few moments later, the water to the shower turned on. She shut the door and sat on the bed. Her vison blurred, and she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her robe. She did not want to cry. She would not let Quinn see her cry.
She thought about the night before and the way he’d touched her. She thought about the way he’d made her feel, and the way she felt right now. In her mind, she could not resolve the two feelings. They didn’t fit. The pleasure and pain of loving Quinn, being thrown from one extreme to the other, was too much.
She listened for the water, and after it shut off, she moved across the room to the small dresser. She opened the top drawer and discovered the missing white blouse and pink panties she’d lost the night before. They’d been washed and folded and placed neatly in the drawer. She picked up the blouse and held it to her nose. It smelled like Quinn’s shirts. Again her vision blurred, and she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Even with everything else going on in her life, Quinn and her broken heart took front and center. It was crazy, but there was no denying it.
She heard Quinn’s footsteps on the other side of the closed door. They paused for several heartbeats before continuing down the hall. Afew moments later, she heard the garage door open and his Jeep pull away. When he returned, she would be ready to go.
Lucy set her black bra and underwear, a khaki skirt, and a black T-shirt on top of the dresser, then dumped the rest of her clothes back into her suitcase. She opened the door, and Millie followed her into the bathroom.
“Out,” she commanded. Millie lay down and looked up at Lucy through sad eyes. “Fine,” Lucy muttered. She jumped into the shower and washed her hair and body. When she was through, she stepped over Millie and brushed her teeth and dried her hair. She pulled her hair into a ponytail, and by the time Quinn returned, she was sitting on his leather couch, dressed and waiting for him.
His face was set in hard lines, and his jaw looked brittle enough to break. He wore jeans and a white Guinness T-shirt. She stood, expecting him to give her the details of the new security arrangement. Instead he took her hand and placed two small cassettes in her palm. “What’s this?”
“The videotapes taken the night the house was wired.”
She looked up. He had his cop face on, the blank, expressionless set to his features that made him look hard. Except for his dark eyes. He couldn’t wipe the emotion from his eyes. It flickered just beneath the surface, hot and alive and something he couldn’t control the way he could control the rigid set of his jaw. “How did you get these?”