He'd been twenty-seven, high off the success of his and Chay's first-year earnings with their new business, and totally unprepared for the fist in the gut that was Yolanda Tinsdale. One evening, he, Chay, and Gabe had attended Mal's mother's birthday party, celebrating as well as providing a buffer between Mal and his asshole-ish father, Christopher. Even the baleful glares Christopher Jerrod shot in their direction couldn't taint Rafe's good mood. Then Mal's mom, Pam, had introduced them to Yolanda, the daughter of one of Christopher's business associates. The beautiful, petite brunette had stolen his voice and his sense-a first. He'd fallen. Hard. And when she'd discreetly passed him her number later in the night, he could've beat Superman's ass in leaping tall buildings.
They'd begun to see each other on the DL; he'd understood her precaution. She was moneyed Back Bay, he was lower middle-class North End. Her family's reputation was beyond reproach, while in some less than savory circles, the last name Marcel was associated with bookmaking in the Patriarca crime family. Along with being a mean, alcoholic son of a bitch, his father had been a criminal who'd spent more years behind bars than with his family-including the last sixteen after he was handed a thirty-year sentence for racketeering and bookmaking. She was twenty-four and had never been out on her own, pampered by her protective parents. He was a seasoned twenty-seven-year-old who had experienced things she saw on crime shows, been living on his own since eighteen, and been raised by a hardworking mother and absentee father. Another thing that Gabe, Mal, Chay, and he had in common-fucked-up or absent men as fathers.
None of that-his poor background, notorious father, lack of social connections-had seemed to matter to her, though, and it damn sure hadn't to him. Though he'd been in relationships before-albeit short-lived-for the first time, he'd lowered his guard, had permitted her in the real estate of his heart only previously leased by family and his three best friends.
When she'd announced she was pregnant, he'd been overjoyed. And a year later had been crushed when a paternity test had revealed the truth: he wasn't the father of the boy he'd believed his. She'd lied to him, especially when she'd told him she loved him. The entire time she had been with him, she'd also been sleeping with an "acceptable" man her parents approved of. Rafe had been "fun" but not good enough to marry or raise a child with. No way could her son wear the last name Marcel.
Greer and Yolanda were so similar: wealthy background, genteel manner … surprise pregnancy. When Greer had entered his office with her announcement, she'd torn open the veil to the past. All the pain, grief, and rage had returned as if he'd stared into Yolanda's pale face yesterday as she admitted her deceit instead of years ago.
If he were honest with himself-and he made a point to always be-at some point between yesterday and this morning, he'd accepted that Greer wasn't lying to him. That six-month period of abstinence story was outlandish enough to probably be true. Maybe it'd been her strength in the face of weariness. Maybe it'd been the open love, affection, and protectiveness Ethan and Noah had displayed toward her. Maybe it'd been the vulnerability he'd witnessed last night. One or all of them had convinced him of her honesty. Greer believed he was the father of her child.
Not that it mattered.
Once this stalker was caught and she no longer needed him, she would hit the bricks. She would bail, cut him out of her and the baby's life. The truth of the matter was, all that had occurred in the past months-being accused of Gavin's death, the media coverage, the notoriety-was just a blip in her life. Hell, yeah, a big-ass blip, but it would eventually pass. The furor was already on its way to dying down, and soon she would resume her Back Bay lifestyle. Complete with the expensive brownstone, society friends, and obscene wealth. Which meant no room for the working-class, tattooed baby daddy from the North End.
Remembering what lay in store for him months from now would keep him grounded in reality. Keep him from being foolish enough to make the same stupid, humiliating-heart-wrenching-mistake.
Twice.
He'd fallen once. Never again.
Though Greer was stashed in his house, he would keep his distance from her and the baby. That path only led to destruction. And last time he checked, he wasn't a masochist.
Rafe rose from his chair and stalked toward the floor-to-ceiling window that encompassed one wall of his home office. He braced a hand against the glass, studying the peaceful scenery outside as if it could somehow still the turmoil roiling inside him. In the past, the silent woods that boasted gold and red leaves in autumn, stark, nude branches in winter, and bold, bright-green foliage in the spring eased something in him. It'd been why he'd bought the house in the first place. His friends had been stunned at his purchase of the five-bedroom, three-level home with its ornate balconies and turret-style roof. But growing up in Boston's "Little Italy" in his family's crowded, boisterous apartment had created a yearning for his own sanctuary where he could just shut out the noise. And that's what his home was to him-a haven. A haven that had been infiltrated by the disturbing presence of Greer Addison at his request. Or order.
Damn, they had medicine for the kind of craziness he'd exhibited in the last twenty-four hours.
With a sigh, he turned away from the window, scrubbing a hand over his nape. Work. He needed work. The one thing he had control over. But one glance at the computer where the report waited, and he growled in frustration. The odds of work getting done at this moment was nil to nada damn chance. Coffee. And-he tilted his head, peered down at the clock on the monitor-a sandwich. It was past twelve. He needed a break. A break from himself, damn it.
He left the office and jogged up the steps that led to the first floor and out of the man cave/home office. As he headed for the kitchen, his ears automatically tuned in to Greer FM, listening for any sound from the back of the house. Ridiculous, his common sense sneered. Still, he paused at the kitchen entrance, strained for the slightest noise. Nothing. Curiosity roused, he switched direction and strode on bare feet toward her room.
A sliver of wall and a bedside dresser peeped at him through her cracked door. She could be getting dressed or in the middle of the feminine rituals his mother and sisters practiced. She might want privacy …
He slapped his palm to the door and pushed it open.
"What the hell is this?" Rafe blinked, frozen in the open doorway. Greer whipped around with a startled cry, her long brown ponytail tumbling over the shoulder of a smudged white man's shirt. Her eyes were wide with shock, her pretty lips parted. She clutched a slender paintbrush between her fingers, and behind her … behind her stood a small easel.
"The door was closed," she pointed out in a strained voice, turning around and setting the brush on the palette that rested on a bedside dresser-turned-table.
"No, it wasn't," he replied, still not able to process what his eyes perceived. Small green squares of tarp covered the dresser and floor under her feet and the table. An assortment of brushes and paints joined the palette on the makeshift table, and on the easel …
"Son of a bitch," he breathed as he shuffled several more steps into the room. A canvas sat on the easel. Though the painting was a little over half finished, he recognized the image brought to vivid, fantastical life by watercolor and what appeared to be ink. He flickered a glance past the easel to the window behind it and the woods that bordered his property. Her painting. The trees outside the paned glass … but not. The same dense, dark trunks and branches with bright-green leaves and newly budding flowers that reached for the sky. But no smoky, ethereal fog wrapped around those branches as they did on the canvas. No regal spire with a red-and-blue flag snapping in the wind. No tiny pixies-or elves?-peeked from behind the proud trunks surrounding his home.
Delight. Joy. Wonder. The emotions swirled in his chest, squeezed his heart like a fist. The innocence of the art reached inside him and nudged a place he'd thought abolished with age and the grime of real life. He was transported back to a time when his biggest worry had been how to con his mother into reading another story out of the battered book of fairy tales that had been passed down to him from his sisters.
With immense effort, he dragged his gaze away from the canvas to focus on the woman-the artist. Who inspired the same awe as her work did. God. He hadn't known … could've never fathomed she could create something so-so wonderful. Christ, that sounded so lame. Damn inadequate to describe the beauty she'd brought to life with mere paint.