“He was murdered when I was around eighteen.” He said the words without emotion, without flinching, without revealing anything about what his father’s murder meant to him. The absolute stillness with which he held himself—the abyss of darkness that suddenly filled his eyes—chilled her.
“Murdered? That’s terrible.” She met his eyes. “Did you kill him?”
“Can’t say the thought didn’t cross my mind three times a day. Never caught the guy. Rumor had it someone put a hit on him.”
Mia noted that he didn’t deny it. “As in a contract killing?”
“Yeah, that’s what the cops believed.”
“And did you think the same thing?”
He held her gaze. The dark void became even deeper. The gravity in his expression told her that she’d never know everything he knew about his father’s death. Did she really want to? “He had one of the largest construction companies in Chicago. He was unscrupulous, dishonest, and had a lot of secret enemies, had the cops bothered to look. They didn’t.”
He touched her cheek, and Mia wanted to nestle her face in his palm. As it happened, he didn’t leave it there long, just long enough to leave a phantom imprint. “If I don’t get the rest of that paper off the walls out there, I’ll never get the painting done.”
She wanted to tell him there was no hurry. But, of course, he might have places to go that didn’t involve having incredible sex with her and scraping off wallpaper.
He turned to leave. “Let the Latours work out their own issues, Mia.”
“I’m surprised you can say that after your own childhood. Wouldn’t you have been grateful if someone had stepped in?”
His face went tight. “What difference would it have made? I was right there, and I couldn’t help. She refused to leave him. He refused to stop abusing her. In the end he killed her.”
“You were a child. Powerless. I’m not a child, and I have resources she doesn’t have. I’ll put them at her disposal.”
“Leave it alone.”
She wasn’t going to leave it alone. As soon as she had a sensible plan of action, Mia would deal with Marcel Latour, one way or another. “Leaving it alone is an interesting suggestion, but one I’m not going to take.”
“You shouldn’t take on other people’s problems,” he told her unsympathetically. “You’ll only make their lives worse.”
It occurred to her that this man did not know her at all. That had been okay until last night. Sex on the stairs had been just sex. Perfect, lust-driven sex. What had happened after they’d showered, though, and what had happened throughout the night had been as close to making love as Mia had ever experienced.
This man, who had held her for hours throughout the night—who’d made love to her again, and again, each time more tenderly, more completely—knew nothing about her. And whose fault is that? She had no one but herself to blame.
She wanted Cruz to know her. To see her. When they walked away from each other, as she knew they eventually would, she wanted him to know exactly who and what he was walking from.
“I can handle Latour, but how would you know that?”
He shrugged. “I guess I wouldn’t.”
“I need to fix that. There are things I need to tell you.”
“I’m standing right here.”
“No.” She glanced at the couple standing close together outside in the garden. Latour was leaning forward, Daisy making herself as small as possible. Mia forced herself to look away, because if she didn’t, she’d go out there and interfere. Big-time. “When the Latours leave. This is important.”
“Do I need a shirt and tie for this conversation?”
Mia slid her arms around his bare waist. His skin felt hot and smooth as she lifted herself up on her toes to kiss him lightly on the mouth. “No,” she said, dropping her arms, moving back to the table. “But it’s a keep-your-pants-on kind of conversation.”
• • •
Cruz fielded an irate call from the person who’d hired him. Assured him/her he was still looking, and would find Amelia in due course. He coldly informed his employer that he didn’t need to be checked up on and he would notify him/her when the job was done, then he disconnected.
He hadn’t meant to tell her anything about his past. None of her business, and dangerous as hell to share confidences in his line of work. He’d never done that before.
Foolish, but then, who was she going to talk to in the depths of Louisiana?
After a quick shower downstairs, he detoured to grab a couple of glasses and her preferred chilled pinot grigio. Carrying the glasses upstairs, he shoved open her bedroom door. “When am I going to see you on that stripper pole?”