A Fare To Remember_ Just Whistle_Driven - Vicki Lewis Thompson [55]
“What the hell is he doing here?” Mario asked.
Iris muttered in Spanish, something Rachel was pretty damned sure was a curse. Not the cussword type, either. The “may your penis turn purple and fall off” type.
“He was just leaving,” she replied.
Roman cast a glance over his shoulder. The regret and self-recrimination in his steel-blue eyes nearly caused her insides to buckle, but she pressed her hand against her belly and silently ordered herself to remain still.
He opened his mouth to speak, but she narrowed her eyes and speared him with a glare that told him any excuse, beyond the honest-to-God truth, would be too little, too late.
With a polite “excuse me,” he moved out of the apartment and consequently, out of her life.
Forever. For good.
Iris rushed past Mario and caught Rachel by the arms before she could sink onto the bed and dissolve. Into tears. Into a puddle. Into a pathetic mess.
“Mija, you’re better off.”
Rachel forced strength into her legs, willed herself to remain standing. “I know that, Iris. I swear, I know that with every fiber of my being. But why, then, why do I feel like I’m about to fall apart?”
CHAPTER SIX
“JUST HOLD ON THERE, SON.”
Roman turned, not entirely surprised to see Mario Capelli stalking after him in the hallway outside Rachel’s apartment. The wizened cabdriver shut the door behind him firmly, then marched down the hall. Roman waited. He supposed he shouldn’t deny the man his opportunity to ream him out.
“Mario,” he said by way of greeting.
The old man arched an eyebrow. “That’s it?”
“I can’t explain to you any more than I could explain to Rachel.”
“She has a lot of questions.”
“None that I can answer.”
He’d wanted to answer them. He’d fully intended to come here and offer complete disclosure. But on the way over, using all his skills as a covert agent to make sure that the enemies who had fired on him this morning didn’t get a second chance to fill him full of holes, he’d realized that the truth would be too selfish and dangerous. What she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her. Right?
Mario shifted his hands into the pockets of his baggy khakis. “Maybe she doesn’t know the right questions to ask, her heart being broken and all.”
“We were never serious that way,” Roman insisted, knowing the statement was only true from her perspective, not his.
“Maybe not in words, but when you jump into a woman’s bed, you jump into her heart, too, whether she likes it or not.”
Roman blew out a frustrated breath. “That’s a fairly old-fashioned viewpoint.”
Mario shrugged. “I’m a fairly old-fashioned guy. But unlike Rachel, I do know what questions to ask. You a crook?”
Roman chuckled. He was a lot of dastardly and despicable things, but a thief wasn’t one of them. “No, sir.”
“Drug dealer?”
He shook his head.
“Assassin? Gunrunner? Bank robber?”
“None of the above.”
“So you’re legit?”
“Not exactly.”
“That can mean only one thing—you’re government issue.”
Roman arched a brow. He supposed he’d led the man to his conclusion by replying with honesty to his questions, but the cabbie had had the forethought to ask. “You in the biz?”
“Just a cop. Detective. Thirty-five years for the NYPD.”
“And now you drive a cab.”
“Beats withering away. I know the city. And I know people. And you’re one who can turn a conversation on a dime so he doesn’t have to talk about himself.”
Roman grinned, not wanting to take the compliment, but what choice did he have? His talent for lying and twisting conversations had brought him to this very place—on the brink of losing a woman he’d risked everything for, simply because he couldn’t tell the truth.
“Rachel is better off without me,” he said, accepting that if he said the mantra often enough, he might, eventually, start to believe it.
Mario clucked his tongue. “That’s obvious. But I’ve got to know that what happened this morning isn’t going to come back to haunt her. You haven’t marked her for a hit, have you?”
Roman opened his mouth to protest, but stopped and thought he’d better think long and