Widow - Anne Stuart [85]
She heard him moving around in the living room, so she quickly shoved the drawer shut and disappeared back into the bathroom. Locks on the door, thank God, and there was a rickety electric heater on the bathroom floor.
She switched it on, fully prepared to die instantly from electrocution and not particularly minding, but after an ominous crackle it started kicking out heat. As the tub filled with hot, steamy water she stripped off her sodden clothes, then turned to look at her reflection in the mirror.
Maguire was right—no hotel would take her in looking like that. She looked like a crazy woman—blood matted in her hair, eyes wide and fearful. She hadn’t brought anything with her—no clothes, no makeup, no…
“Shit!” she said out loud.
“What’s wrong?” Maguire called from the living room.
“Nothing,” she shouted back. “Call the hotel.”
He didn’t reply. She had a new problem now, she thought, sliding into the huge tub and letting the blissfully warm water flow over her. In her desperate flight she hadn’t brought her purse. No passport, no identification, no credit cards, no money.
Still, she had her face. Whether she liked it or not, the art world knew her face, and Tuscany did as well, as the favorite model of their favorite adopted son. It would take a bit of talking, but she had no doubt she could get a hotel to advance her credit until she made a few phone calls to…
To Henry? If she had to, she had to. Henry would take care of things—that was why she’d wanted to marry him. She’d wanted someone to fix everything, make everything all right, and Henry was good at that.
He just wasn’t the man she wanted to spend her life with. For that matter, she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to be taken care of, either. She wanted a partner, not a father. An equal. Or maybe she didn’t want anyone at all.
She slid her head underwater, feeling the cut on her forehead sting. It didn’t matter—she just had to get clean.
She was changing. She could feel it, like a snake shedding its skin, like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. She was no longer the quiet, controlled woman from New York, Pompasse’s former wife, who had forged a peaceful, nondemanding life for herself. She was back in the thick of it, in the midst of life and all its messy demands. She didn’t like it—she wanted her serenity back with a need that bordered on desperation.
But she suspected it was gone for good. And a lot of it was the fault of the man in the other room.
She stayed in the tub until the water grew cool, stayed until the room was suffused with warmth from the tiny electric heater.
She took longer to dress than she usually did, probably because she didn’t want to go out there again. She was able to get a comb through her tangled hair, avoiding the cut up near her scalp, and her bra was in relatively decent shape. The dress was a little too big, but it was loose and comfortable. Which left the problem of underwear.
She’d grabbed a pair of Maguire’s tighty whities. The question was, what would be more unsettling? Going out there with no underwear, or going out there in his shorts? Either way she was too damned vulnerable. She finally decided a layer of cotton, anybody’s cotton, was preferable to being naked.
He had a fire going in the marble fireplace. He’d managed to get himself washed and dried while she was hogging the bathroom, and he was wearing a faded pair of jeans with an old sweater. His hair was spiky from the water, and he looked…wonderful.
There, she admitted it. She found him attractive. There was no crime in it, as long as she didn’t do anything about it. He was a liar, a pig, a trickster, but he had the seemingly unique ability to turn her on. She should concentrate on that fact. If she’d responded to one man she could eventually find another, better one. Someone to love, someone to trust, someone to be partners with.
“What are you staring at?” he demanded.
“I’m wondering why this place is so neat. You don’t strike me as a particularly tidy person.”
“I’m not as bad as you’d think.