“I need you to know something,” Carter said to Rica’s back. She held her breath, waiting.

Rica turned at the doorway, her face a careful mask. “I should call my father now and tell him who you are. I’m sure he could find out who brought you inside. Who has betrayed him.”

“There’s no one to find, Rica.”

“Did you really think you could fuck me and I’d betray my father?”

“I know you wouldn’t.” Carter wanted desperately to go to her. To touch her for just a second. The cold disdain in her eyes was worse than anything she’d ever imagined. Anything except losing her. “I also know…”

“You don’t know anything about me if you think there’s anything in the world that would make me turn against my family. Especially”…Rica shrugged…“not for something I could get anywhere, anytime I wanted it.”

Carter absorbed the words as if they were blows. Her body ached. Her heart bled. “I don’t want you to betray him.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“I’m in love with you.”

Rica laughed. “If you come anywhere near me again, I won’t wait for Enzo to do the job.”

Carter closed her eyes, knowing that when she opened them, Rica would be gone. Rica was still inside the house where they’d come for sanctuary and to make love, but she was as unattainable now as if they’d never met. The gulf that stretched between them echoed with recriminations and broken trust. She’d always known how the story would end, but even knowing, she’d been helpless not to play her part. Still, the empty room and the silent house hurt far more than she’d thought possible. After all the lies, it was the truth that would finally break her heart.

I’m in love with you.

Rica walked directly upstairs, through her bedroom, past the bed where she’d lain only hours before in Carter’s arms. She opened the French doors and stepped out onto the deck. The sky was heavy with clouds, thick gray layers of impending rain that obscured the shoreline and draped the lighthouse at Race Point in shrouds of fog. The air was dank and cold. She’d been wrong. Her earlier chill had had nothing to do with Carter abandoning her in the aftermath of their hasty passion, but only with the weather. Nothing had changed except the color of the sky. Women had come into her life and passed through with barely a notice before, leaving nothing in their wake but blurred memories. Pleasure was a fleeting sensation and after a time, empty.

I’m a cop, Rica.

Why hadn’t she known? Why hadn’t she sensed that something was terribly wrong? How had she allowed a handsome face and a little bit of attention to cloud her judgment so badly?

I’m in love with you.

She’d heard the words, but she refused to consider their meaning. Nothing Carter said could be trusted. She was a liar and a threat.

I’m in love with you.

Carter had asked her about her life. Her life. Not her father’s. She’d been interested in her work, her plans for the gallery, her struggle to build a future all her own. They’d never talked about her legacy. Carter had never asked about her father.

I’m a cop, Rica.

Nothing Carter had said mattered now. Her only reason for being in Rica’s life had been to destroy it. This was the reason that opening up to anyone but family was dangerous. At least family could be trusted.

Rica shivered, feeling the weight of Enzo’s body pinning her to the wall, his hard fury pounding between her thighs. Family.

I’m in love with you.

Rica closed her eyes, trying to erase the images of Carter driving her home through the dark, shepherding her to safety, pushing her to orgasm. Carter’s hands, tender and demanding. Her mouth, gentle and fierce. Her eyes, compassionate and devouring.

I’m a cop, Rica.

Why had Carter told her? Why risk the truth? Why had she held her all night?

Rica fought back tears and brutally contained her pain with fury and denial. The effort made her head scream; her face was a throbbing agony. Nearly blind with the pain, she stumbled into her bathroom and pawed through the medicine cabinet for painkillers. Nothing.

She curled up on top of the sheets, her arms clutched around her middle, her knees drawn up, her eyes tightly closed. The pain in her head and the ache in her heart threatened to consume her. She wished for oblivion but sleep wouldn’t come. She moaned as her stomach revolted. She smelled Carter on the pillow. With a cry, she pushed herself up and fumbled for the phone.

When she pulled out of her driveway thirty minutes later, she was too busy fighting back the nausea to notice the vehicle that fell into line a discreet distance behind her.

Chapter Twenty

Tory lifted the chart from the rack on the back of the door. When she didn’t recognize the name, she thumbed through to the intake form. Chief complaint: headache. The rest of the information was sparse. No significant past medical history, no drugs, no allergies, no unusual illnesses. She knocked on the door and walked into the examining room.

“Ms. Grechi? Hello, I’m Dr. King.”

The woman who sat on the examining table was sheet white, the skin around her luminous dark eyes tight with obvious pain, her lips pale. A noticeable hematoma marred her left cheek and a bruise discolored her flawless skin as far down as the edge of her jaw. Tory reached to the wall beside her and turned off the overhead fluorescents, leaving only the small lights under the cabinets for illumination.

“Thank you,” Rica said.

Tory gestured to the chart. “It says you have a headache.”

“Yes. An enormous one. I took some ibuprofen last night, but I don’t think that’s going to be enough today.”

“Do you have a history of headaches? Migraines?”

Rica started to shake her head, then stopped quickly with a wince. “No.”

“Any other symptoms besides the headache? Changes in vision…wavy lines, spots, blind areas?”

“No. I’m a little nauseated just at the moment. I’m sure if I can just get some sleep, I’ll be fine. I was hoping you could give me something for the pain.”

“Let me get a look.” Tory removed a small penlight from her lab coat pocket, examined Rica’s eyes, and then performed a complete head and neck exam. When she finished, she made a few notes, then set the chart aside. “How did you get the bruise on your cheek?”

Rica’s expression did not change as she contemplated Tory and the closed folder. The message was clear. Off the record. Not that it mattered, because she didn’t discuss private matters with strangers. She heard the words in her head and would have laughed if her face hadn’t been about to explode. When had she started lying to herself about herself? She had discussed a great many personal things with Carter with hardly a moment’s worry. She hadn’t even worried about letting her into her heart. Oh God, was that what she’d done? No. Of course she hadn’t. She might have been blinded by lust, but… She realized the doctor was waiting, regarding her with calm, accepting eyes. Whatever mistakes she’d made with Carter, she wouldn’t pretend it was only lust between them. That lie hurt too much. “Someone hit me.”

“When?”

“Last night.” Rica felt unexpectedly relieved at the opportunity to say the words out loud. She didn’t ask herself why, blaming the pain as an excuse for her lapse in caution.

“How many times?”

Rica thought back to the frantic encounter. She couldn’t remember the exact sequence, only her initial anger giving way to escalating panic. She hated him more for the fear than the violation of her body. He’d hit her when she’d struggled, and then again when she still wouldn’t give in. It was hard to remember it. Hard to relive it, but she recalled quite vividly the fury in Carter’s eyes as she’d confronted Enzo. And, after she’d hit him, the gentleness in Carter’s touch when she’d taken Rica into her arms. It was so much easier to recall the tenderness than the brutality. “Twice.”

“Did you lose consciousness?”

“No.”

“Has this person done this before?”

Rica grimaced. “No, he hasn’t.”

“Did you report it to the police?”

“No.” She met Tory’s eyes. “It’s a family matter.”

“Ms. Grechi,” Tory said gently, “in situations like thi…”

“Dr. King,” Rica said, “I know what the procedures are, and I know what you’re thinking. I’m not an abused partner. I don’t have a romantic relationship with this man and, believe me, I’m not trying to protect him. You’ll just have to believe me that it won’t happen again.”

“All right,” Tory said after a moment. Her new patient did not have the frantic, almost apologetic demeanor of the chronically abused. There was also something about her careful phrasing that made Tory believe this wasn’t the result of a love affair gone bad, either. “Did he assault you in any other way?”

Rica closed her hands tightly around the edge of the vinyl cushion that covered the examining table. She felt his hands on her thighs, his erection thrusting between her legs. She hated him and everything he represented in her life. His arrogant entitlement, his cruel dominance. All her life she’d lived in the shadow of men like Enzo. Her father was blind to the fact that his power made her nothing more than an object of desire, a prize to be won. Whereas his power defined him, it obliterated her. From the moment they’d met, Carter had seen only her, not Alfonse Pareto’s daughter. At least, that’s what she’d believed. Until this morning. Rica swallowed around the sudden constriction in her throat. Her voice was soft when she spoke. “No. He didn’t have a chance to.”

“But you believe you’re safe from him now?”

“Yes.”

Tory rested her fingertips on the chart and spun it slowly on the table, searching Rica’s face. “Part of your headache is due to the fact that your temporomandibular joint is badly inflamed as a result of the blows. I don’t see any evidence of intracranial injury, but you were lucky. The next time he could do far more serious damage.”

“It won’t happen again. Please take my word for that.”

“I can’t force you to file charges, and I do understand how difficult it can be, especially when it’s a family member. Will you call me if there’s another problem?”

Rica stared, surprised. “Why does it matter so much to you? You don’t know me.”

Tory smiled. “No, I don’t. But I care that someone hurt you, because no one has the right to do that.”

“Is it that simple for you?” Rica asked curiously. Nothing in her life had ever seemed to be black and white. Some of the things her father did for a living were illegal, but he was her father and she loved him. So she pretended that if she didn’t acknowledge what he did, she wouldn’t have to judge him. He had given her a life that appeared on the surface to be one of privilege, but underneath, it had been a prison. Carter had lied to her, and yet she’d felt more like herself with Carter than she ever had with another person. There was nothing simple about the truths of her life. “Do you always find the right and wrong of things so clear?”

“No, not always.” Tory’s eyes grew distant as she thought of Reese and wondered what she was doing at that moment. Some people believed soldiers like Reese blindly followed orders as if every decision was black and white, but Tory knew that wasn’t true. She could tell from their often aborted conversations that Reese questioned what she was doing in a country half a world away fighting for an agenda that was far from apparent. Reese believed in the ideals of the Marine Corps, but Tory knew her allegiance came with a personal price. Reese paid it, and so, now, did she. Tory looked into Rica’s eyes. “But this is one of those times when I think the right and wrong of it are very clear. He has no right to touch you, ever, unless you want him to.”

“It won’t happen again, but,” Rica said quickly, sensing Tory’s objection, “I’ll call you if I’m wrong.”

Tory nodded, satisfied. “Good. The medication I’m going to give you will make you sleepy. Do you have someone who can stay with you?”

“Yes,” Rica lied. Not anymore.

“Don’t take these until you get home if you’re driving.”

“No, I won’t. Thank you.”

As Tory wrote out the prescription, she said, “Call me tomorrow if the pain hasn’t improved or if your jaw gets stiffer. We may need to x-ray it.”

“Yes, of course,” Rica said, taking the prescription. “I appreciate your help.”

“Just take care of yourself, Ms. Grechi.”

“I will.” Rica made her way outside, steadfastly ignoring the pounding pain behind her eyes. Take care of yourself. Yes, that was just what she intended to do, and her first stop, even before the pharmacy, was going to be her gallery, where she kept a .25 caliber Beretta in the desk.