Widow - Anne Stuart [64]
For some reason her careful plans for the future no longer seemed so wise. New York had been a haven for five years, but it was no more home than any of the dozens of cities she’d lived in over the years. Home should be with Henry, and yet she couldn’t quite imagine it. What had happened to shake her secure belief in her self-ordained future? How could she reclaim it?
She closed her eyes. She was absolutely exhausted, her body still dealing with the vagaries of jet lag and the shock of the last few days. Someone thought Pompasse hadn’t fallen down those apartment steps he knew so well, but had been pushed by an angry hand.
But it wasn’t her—she’d been holed up in her apartment in New York. Besides, she had no reason to kill him. She’d escaped—or at least she thought she had.
Murderer, it had read, and the red paint had dripped down her door like blood. Someone hated her enough to slash through her portrait and daub it in bloodred paint. Did they hate her enough to do the same to her?
And if everyone was wrong, and Pompasse had been murdered, could that murderer want to hurt Charlie, as well?
She could think of no reason why, and the thoughts went whirling around and around in her head. The wooden pew was hard beneath her curled-up body, but she was past caring. She wrapped her arms around herself in the cool night air because there was no one else she could turn to for warmth and comfort, no one she would let hold her close and calm her. She’d go back to the house later, when everyone was asleep. She’d take off her clothes, go through the adjoining doors and climb into bed with Henry. In the same bed where Pompasse had made love to her.
And she wouldn’t say a word. Henry would think she’d been cured, and she’d never tell him the truth. She would make a safe, comfortable life for herself, with babies. She couldn’t see Henry as a father, but she could see herself with babies, fat, cheerful babies, at her breast, at her feet, crawling on the dusty floor of a place far away from cities and…
But she would always live in the city. And there’d be no dust in Henry’s household. She needed to sleep, at least for a while, before she faced up to her decision.
By tomorrow it would all be simple and clear. By tomorrow she would have slept with Henry and have no more doubts. By tomorrow…
Charlie’s houseguests were having a surprisingly good time without her, Maguire thought grumpily. They’d taken Lauretta’s explanation without question, and not even devoted old Henry seemed to miss her. Of course, he had Gia doing her best to dazzle him, and the man was easily dazzled. Though if Charlie was as cold as her mother said then the poor old guy probably hadn’t gotten laid in a hell of a long time, and Gia was pretty damned tempting.
Though for that matter, Maguire hadn’t gotten laid, either, and he hadn’t had any trouble resisting Gia’s overtures. But then, he was already distracted by Charlie, a much more complicated proposition.
It must have something to do with his cavemen ancestors, he thought, sitting in a corner watching them. The need to conquer, the need to control, the need to prove to someone like Charlie Thomas that she just hadn’t found the right man. So she didn’t like sex, right? That’s because she hadn’t let him try it.
He was full of shit and he knew it. But he couldn’t stop thinking of her. Thinking of the things he could do to her, how he could get her to react, and he was sitting there with a hard-on while the girl’s mother and a senile old lady were looking at him suspiciously, and he wished to hell he had a book or something to cover his lap. He was like some horny teenage boy, unable to control himself.
Lauretta