Dani pulled away from Rand enough to smile at him, reading the intensity in his eyes and knowing it for what it was. Her sign to exit, stage right. “I’m pretty sure the answer is going to be no.”
His face registered a gratifying level of surprise, but she slid away from him, standing still as the hot water sluiced over her skin. If only it could wash away her emotions as easily, she thought, aware of Rand behind her, watching her like a predator choosing its next move.
She stepped out of the shower before he could reach for her again, and pulled a freshly laundered towel from the rack where a selection was perfectly arranged. It draped around her, larger than it looked, and she allowed herself another stolen moment, wrapping herself in luxury. Whatever Rand said next was mercifully drowned out by the water—by the water and the sound of buzzing from the other room.
Her phone.
Dani strode into the sitting room, for once happy for the distraction. Erin wouldn’t be calling her back, but even if she was being tracked down by Jimmy or Lou, their problems had to be easier to manage than whatever Rand was going to ask of her. Because she hadn’t been lying. She was pretty sure that whatever Rand requested, the answer needed to be no. But for the first time in her life, she wasn’t 100 percent certain that she could give that no without faltering. So a break in the action was definitely in order.
She fished the phone out of her purse and looked at it. It wasn’t a call; it was a text. And when she thumbed the unit on, she blinked. There’d been five texts over the course of the night, each successively more terse, with Jimmy asking her to call, to check in, to call again—never indicating the problem, or even where he was.
Until the last.
Dani, come on. I’m at the hospital. Call me.
Her mouth tightened. “I swear to God, Jimmy, if you’re using again, I’m going to hurt you bad enough to keep you in the hospital.”
“What is it?” Rand appeared at the doorway.
“Jimmy,” she said, then realized more explanation might be necessary. “My foster—”
Rand waved off her words. “He’s hurt?”
“He’d better be.” Scowling, Dani punched the numbers to Jimmy’s phone. He picked it up on the second ring, which relieved her more than it should have. But what she heard in his voice had her drawing up short, every instinct on high alert.
Jimmy’s words were fast, frenetic. But they weren’t under the influence of anything but fear.
“Dani! Oh, thank God you called. You need to come to the hospital, I’m really worried.”
“Worried about what?” Dani asked. She’d already dropped the towel and was now pulling her underwear free of her neatly piled clothes. She held her phone to her ear with her shoulder as she spoke. “Who’s at the hospital? Who’s hurt?”
“It’s too much to explain on the phone. I was hoping it was nothing, that she would just have the surgery and be done, but I was wrong. There’s going to be more. God, Dani, so much more.”
“Jimmy.” Dani had stopped still at the pronoun “she.” “What happened? Is it Katie? The baby? What is going on?”
Like he always did, Jimmy pulled it together at the command in her voice, “It’s Nell,” Jimmy said. “She…just come, Dani. I’m at Children’s. I’ll explain it all here.”
Dani’s breath practically stopped in her throat as Jimmy cut the phone call short. Rand strode over to her, taking the phone out of her hand. “I can drive you,” he said, his words clipped, matter-of-fact.
“No, no, that’s okay. I just need a cab. Can you get me a cab? That’s what I need.” She pulled her dress on over her head, her mind churning. Rand stared at her another long moment, then wordlessly crossed the room to where his own phone lay on the table. Dani returned to the bathroom to comb her hands through the tangle of her hair, barely hearing him speak in the other room.
It’s Nell, Jimmy had said. Nell, who was just a baby. Of course it was Nell. It would have to be Nell if he was at Children’s. But why? What had happened to her, what was she doing there?”
She almost ran straight into Rand as she exited the bathroom, and he caught her in his arms, steadying her. “My driver will take you wherever you need to go.”
“C’mon, Rand, I said a cab would be—”
“It’s my driver or myself. You don’t have another option. A taxi will take an additional twenty minutes that I don’t think you really want to waste.”
She couldn’t argue with the sense of that, so she just nodded. Rand handed her her purse and turned her to the door. “He’s already waiting for you.”
The trip to the hospital passed in a blur. Nell is just a baby. Not even six months old. There’s nothing wrong with her. She’s perfect. The words rattled around in her mind, taunting her. She actually hadn’t seen Nell or Katie in the past few months, maybe since Christmas, but she’d been busy. Erin had had her gallery showing, Erin’s boyfriend, Zander, had moved into the brownstone, she’d picked up extra work. And Jimmy had come asking her for money, when? Two weeks ago? Three?
For drugs, he’d said. Drugs.
“Christ,” Dani muttered, her own heart seeming to beat too slowly now, each thump a sluggish churn. The driver didn’t speak to her beyond getting her destination, but he blasted the heat, seeming to realize that Dani’s thin coat had to protect her against more than the weather. She didn’t even remember saying goodbye to Rand, but that didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter.
Nothing else mattered but Nell.
She found Jimmy in one of the waiting rooms, and the look on his face when he saw her almost cracked her in two all over again.
“It’s a…a hole. In her heart,” he said, his eyes red with tears. “They mentioned some concerns when she was born—just something to monitor, because she was perfect, Dani. She was smiling and eating and sleeping and doing exactly what babies do. But then we took her in for her checkups, and each time, she was getting worse. The drugs helped some, at first. Even though they got expensive fast. Then she—she was just sleeping, but her poor little body was covered in sweat and her heart was pounding so fast! You could feel it all the way through her blanket, and we brought her in, and…”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Dani whispered. “Why didn’t you let me know what was really going on? You let me believe something stupid and wrong when the truth would have been so much better, Jimmy. What were you thinking?”
“The truth isn’t better,” he said, and the tremor in his voice made her heart twist. “I didn’t want to think about the truth. I thought if we just got ready, did everything we needed to, one day we’d walk in and the doctor would tell us, never mind, that he’d made a mistake. He’d made a mistake and everything was going to be okay now.” His face seemed to crumple a little. “Everything was going to be okay.”
“It will be, it will be,” Dani said, and she pulled him close again. His shoulders were heaving in huge, racking sobs, and he seemed so much smaller all of a sudden. Not like a grown man at all, but a boy who was all arms and legs and mouth, staring at her like she was his whole world.
And now Jimmy rocked back again, wiping his face with his hand. If anything, he looked even more haggard. “We knew surgery was a possibility, but we didn’t know it was going to be so soon. And that there might be more than one. We’re not ready.”
“Insurance?” Dani asked.
“Some,” he said. “But, Dani, they want to do a special surgery, some kind of new procedure that they think is right for her, and insurance is saying they won’t…they won’t…” Jimmy started breathing hard, too hard, too fast. “It’s going to cost something like a million dollars, and we don’t have enough equity in the house, in my 401(k). We don’t have enough to cover—”
“Shhh, Jimmy. I’ve got you. You know I’ve got you.”
Anything it took. Anything at all.
The doctor came in a short while later and they stood, Dani stepping back automatically to create a space between her and her brother and his wife. Not that she was giving up the mantle of responsibility, of course, but Nell was Jimmy and Katie’s daughter, their family, her life inextricably joining them together as an inviolable unit. There would always be that separation between her and them, and she was comfortable with that. It didn’t change what was important.
She would call in every favor she’d ever earned to ensure Jimmy’s daughter got the treatment she needed. And if that still wasn’t enough, well, she still had options.
Turned out, everything had its price.
Rand had just been seated for his lunch appointment at Troquet. It was early, because he preferred to deal with his sister when his mind was as centered and calm as possible, two qualities in short supply of late. Dani had been infuriatingly silent since she’d disappeared to go to the hospital the night before. Technically, she wasn’t due to see him until the evening, but his calls to her had gone unanswered, and her responding text had told him next to nothing. That all was well, she would see him whenever he needed, and a thanks for the use of his driver.
It hadn’t taken much for him to sort out the truth of the first statement. One of the board members of Winston Securities sat on the board of directors at Children’s, and it only took a few calls to get the real story. The child of Dani’s foster brother Jimmy was not well. The treatment plan recommended for her would set the family back at least a cool million, with no clear indication as to what insurance would cover. Even now, he half-suspected Dani was out looking for a bank to knock over. The thought should have amused him. Instead, it thoroughly irritated him.
A brush of electric blue flashed across his vision, setting him on high alert, and a long, sleek form slid into the chair opposite him. He checked his watch, then looked up, his brows lifting in interest. “You’re not my lunch date.”
Dani smiled, her tightly clasped hands the only indication of her tension. She looked beautiful, perfectly suited to the expensive restaurant, her face serene and expertly made-up, her hair coiffed with a stylist’s careful touch. “Ms. Pearson told me where to find you.”
“Ms. Pearson!” That did catch him by surprise. “How in the world did you get her to—”
“I told her you were breaking up with me, that I was sure of it, but that you wanted to do it in person, and in my distress I’d forgotten the restaurant.” Dani’s smile was brittle. “My tears were quite convincing, but I’m pretty sure she wanted to believe me so much she would have told me anything.” She waved away his startled reply. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m here, and I wanted to follow up on something you mentioned last night. Before I was called away to the hospital.”
He stilled, hearing the waver in her voice. Dani’s facade was sheer perfection, for all that it was wafer thin. To anyone not looking closely, she appeared to be a woman in complete control, but her eyes betrayed how very close she was to the edge. Too close. Despite himself, Rand felt a surge of possessiveness, a need to comfort her, to protect her, to do whatever it took to make it okay.
Which should have made him wary. Because, after all, wasn’t that kind of visceral response exactly what she was skilled at evoking in him—in any of her marks? And yet something had begun shifting in Dani when she was with him, despite her very best efforts to keep up the act of being cool, calm, and always in control. Her con was beginning to fray around the edges.
That should have made him feel triumphant, and yet…
Dani’s voice cut across his thoughts. “You mentioned a proposition last night, before we were interrupted,” she said. “I might be interested after all, depending on the terms.”
It took him only a second to remember what she was talking about. The proposition. Dani, trusting him completely. Dani, giving in. Her eyes flicked away, but not before he could see the resolution flare within them. Rand regarded her steadily, excitement beginning to stir in his blood.
He’d expected to have to cajole Dani, to seduce her to get her anywhere near her hard no again. To draw her to his side bit by careful bit. Because once he’d really taken the time to consider her reaction at Darke, he’d realized that there was something off about it. That the intensity of it was too strong, too panicked. And that maybe that panic had nothing to do with him, but everything to do with her. Rand knew what it was like to be hostage to memories you couldn’t let go of; he didn’t want Dani to live like that for one second more, if he could help it. If that was what she was willing to do, he was all for it. Still, he needed her to say the words.
“You’ll reverse your hard no?”
“I’ll reverse my hard no.” She blew out a long breath. “But it’s going to cost you a lot.”
“That’s not a problem.” Rand leaned forward. “I know about your foster brother’s child, Dani. And I know the kind of medical bills she’s got ahead of her.” To her credit, she didn’t ask him how he knew. She of all people knew how easily he could find out what he wanted to know. “Whatever the cost, and yes, I know it could be upward of a million dollars. I will set up a trust to ensure it’s covered. However long it takes. And that your niece has the best care money can buy, as long as she needs it.”
She stared at him a long moment, then nodded, as if she were still trying to come to terms with the words they were speaking to each other, the commitments they were making. “Okay,” she said at last, lifting her eyes to meet his gaze. “Deal.”
She let the pause lengthen, until finally he leaned forward, the move heightening their intimacy, setting Dani further on edge. “When?” he asked. Because that’s really all he wanted to know now. When he’d have this woman in his arms, in his control. When she would have to give him everything—and know that she was giving it. And then know what he did with that power, minute by exquisite minute. To Dani, this would be the ultimate surrender, and she was treating it like a death sentence.
To Rand, it was the ultimate victory, and his mind was already running wild with everything he planned to do. To her, and with her, and for her. Until she was shaking uncontrollably and begging him to make love to her, desperate for him to fill her, to make her his. And that would only be the beginning, the very smallest part of what he really wanted from her.
Dani of course had no idea of what he was thinking—or maybe she did. Either way, her smile only became more brittle. “Today. Tonight. As soon as possible.” She flattened her hands on the table, and they trembled with nerves.
Rand’s answering smile was as gentle as he could make it, even though his pulse was jacked so high that his own hands were shaking slightly. “I’ll call you, then.” He let his gaze go more wolfish, letting her see how much he wanted her under his control. “And I’ll do my best to ensure it’s an experience you’ll want to repeat, again and again.”
Dani stood so quickly she almost stumbled back from the table, but at that moment, another figure approached them, cloaked in elegance and money. “What, you’ve already abandoned me for another? For shame—”
Rand wasn’t sure what stole the words from Catherine’s mouth, the sight of Dani dressed to the nines or the look of sheer panic on her face. Whichever it was, his sister’s characteristically snide sense of humor fled, immediately replaced with concern. “Miss Michaels, are you all right?”
Dani’s laugh was as bright and cold as the frigid February sunshine streaming through the restaurant’s plate-glass windows. “Oh, Catherine, I couldn’t be better,” she said, and her voice was brittle, too, like fine crystal just about to break. “There’s nothing like winning it all to really pick up your day, don’t you think?” Without looking at Rand again, she moved off with long, certain strides, and Rand watched her unabashedly as Catherine took the seat she’d just vacated.
His sister pinned Rand with a glare. “You want to tell me what that was about?”
But Rand just smiled, his mind already leaping ahead to what he and Dani would be enjoying together soon…so very soon.
“Not at all,” he said.