He waited, needing to hold her, wanting to put a stop to this, but knowing it wouldn’t matter. She would always have these moments etched into her memories for all time.
Judith swallowed several times, opened her mouth and closed it, gulped air and bunched his shirt in her fists as if she needed him to be her anchor. “The officer pulled out a gun and put it to his head. He shot himself, right there, before anyone knew what he intended. He was standing next to me, one moment reaching down to help me and the next his blood was everywhere and his body fell right on top of mine.”
Stefan closed his eyes briefly, the sorrow so heavy in his heart that he felt crushed. He knew it was her sorrow, her body crushed beneath the dead policeman. For a man who had lived most of his existence with emotions firmly locked away, he was getting a crash course in real life with a woman a man loved. The picture of lying in her brother’s blood with the innocent policeman’s body on top of hers, was all too real in his mind. For the first time in more years than he could remember, he wanted to weep for another human being.
Stefan pulled her rigid body into his arms, sweeping away her resistance with sheer strength. He held her tight, willing his body heat to seep into her, to warm her and bring her back from a place of death and despair. His hands slid into her mass of hair, bunching the silky strands in his fist, massaging her scalp with strong fingers.
“Come back to me, Judith. You’re safe with me now. You can scream if you need to. Cry. But stay with me. There’s no need to be afraid for me.”
She shook her head, her fear beating at him.
“I can take anything you feel, the worst you have to offer,
il mio angelo caduto
. I’m not new at this. I’ve been there, right where you are. You aren’t alone, not as long as I’m in the world with you.”
Judith spoke seven languages, she couldn’t fail to interpret his
my fallen angel
spoken in Italian with a perfect accent. She made a single sound of despair that broke his heart.
Stefan pulled her head back ruthlessly by the hair bunched tight in his fist, no longer asking. He wasn’t that kind of man. His mouth found hers and took possession, driving his tongue deep, commanding her to acknowledge him. Acknowledge that she was safe with him, no matter the intensity of her emotions. He lived in the shadows. He understood battles. He wasn’t new to the game and he would stand for her.
It took a few moments but she kissed him back, gripping him tight, holding him to her, while darkness and loathing beat at his body, while horror battered his heart and sorrow bruised his soul. Her body lost most of its stiffness, softening, melting into his in surrender.
Stefan kissed his way down the side of her face, following the tracks of her tears. “I’m here, Judith. I’m not running. Look around you. The house is still standing. I’m in one piece and I’ve got you safe. Do you really want to be alone?”
“I’m not the perfect woman everyone wants to think I am.”
Her confession was muffled against his mouth and he kissed her again. “I’m not looking for perfection. I’m not a man who could live with that. I’ve committed a few sins myself, Judith. You’re safe with me. You are. I’ll tell you a million times if you need to hear me say it that often.” He loosened his hold on her hair, allowing her to bury her face against him again.
“I can feel them both, above and below me, sandwiching me in. All the blood and brains and matter.” She choked, began to cry again. “I hate him so much. Jean-Claude. I know I’m responsible. The counselor and my sisters say differently, but I was the one who ignored the warning signs. I saw what I wanted to see and my brother paid the price. I didn’t control my emotions and the officer paid with his life.”
She rubbed at her arms, her face buried against his chest, her ear over the steady beat of his heart. “There was so much blood, Thomas, and none of it was mine. It should have been me there, not my brother.”
“Was Jean-Claude there?”
He felt the faint shake of her head and he pressed his lips against her ear, tenderness welling up like a fountain from some depth inside him he didn’t know he had. He smoothed one hand down her back, pressing her closer to him.
“Of course not. He was safe in his little castle waiting for his men to drag me back to him. I went into hiding for two months.” Her voice turned bitter. “I couldn’t even retrieve my brother’s remains and bring him home. Jean-Claude was arrested for running drugs, guns and human trafficking, but not murder. And he had my brother murdered. He’s responsible.”
She looked up at him. “I’m not absolving myself of my part in what happened, don’t think that for a minute, but I’ve taken a look at the prison he’s in, read all about it. France is supposed to be big and bad, but Jean-Claude has a cushy little cell and continues to run his operations right from there.”
“How do you know that?”
She shrugged and stepped back. Stefan let her go, dropping his arms to his side, his mind racing.
“Have you visited him?”
She scowled at him, a fierce, black expression, loathing in her eyes. “
Never.
I will never give him the satisfaction of seeing me, knowing what he took from me just because he could.”
Stefan chose his words very carefully. The intensity of emotions hammering at him had lessened just a little and he didn’t want to trigger another assault. His body actually felt bruised and battered.
“Do you think he sent those men after you because he wanted you back? He was afraid of what you saw and that you might testify against him? Or did he give you something he wanted back?”
Her gaze jumped to his face.
“A wealthy man gives expensive presents. They often want them back in a fit of temper, especially if it is a family heirloom.”
“I think he sent those men after me out of pure spite. He once told me that I could never leave him—that he wouldn’t let me. I was young enough and stupid enough to be thrilled. I thought that meant he loved me and would fix anything that went wrong between us.”
He reached out. Judith flinched away from him. He shook his head. “Don’t.” Hard authority edged his voice. He wasn’t about to lose her, not now. “We’ve come this far, Judith, there’s no point in retreating. Look at me.”
He held out his arms to encompass the house. “I’m still standing. You relived the entire horrible event, experienced the same intense emotions and I’m handling it.”
Judith sighed and walked away from him, over to the window to look out at her gardens below, breathing deeply, striving for control. Stefan followed her, doing a slow sweep of the countryside from the vantage of her large bank of windows. The bright flowers shimmered in the slight breeze and at once he felt a lessening of the intensity of Judith’s emotions. Degree by slow degree, she was bringing her passionate nature back under control.
He didn’t mind passion or fire. He could handle both. And he could handle her sorrow, her tears. She was his. It was that simple to him. She was his. Whatever she needed, he intended to provide. She shivered and he moved in close, rubbing her arms to warm her.
“This is happening too fast. I don’t trust fast,” she murmured, shaking her head.
“You don’t trust,” Stefan corrected gently. “Neither do I, but that doesn’t negate the fact that we’re already here. Let’s eat lunch, Judith. Show me around your house. Let’s just take a little breathing room.”
“You think that’s the worst of me?” She looked over her shoulder at him. “It isn’t, Thomas. I wish it was the worst.”
She was determined to drive him away, to expose her worst secrets. To her, he was Thomas Vincent, a good man. She had no idea that on her worst day, she couldn’t hold a candle to the sins of Stefan Prakenskii.
He bent his head and placed his mouth against her ear. “Tell me then. Give me the worst, Judith.”
“You’re a good person, Thomas. Inside, where it counts, you’re a good person. I don’t understand why you think you could ever be with someone who can’t control their emotions and others pay the price.”
“You aren’t less than me because your element gets away from you. Never think I haven’t done far worse in my lifetime.”
He turned her around to face him, automatically drawing her back away from the window. The habit was ingrained in him, like so many others he would never overcome even if his life changed completely. He was giving her Stefan’s truth, not Thomas’s. It was possible she would put his sentiment down to service in the military, misleading herself, but he would give her as much truth as he could, share himself with her, not his cover.
She studied his expression, his jaw, the coolness of his stare. “I want him dead. Jean-Claude. I want him to suffer and die.” This time she didn’t look away, her gaze steady, her chin up as if she was waiting for judgment.
“So you want justice.” He shrugged. “That’s hardly unusual, or something to be ashamed of
, mi angel caido
.” This time he changed to Spanish, wanting to drive home the point that he was also educated in languages, and that no matter how fallen she thought herself, she was his angel and always would be.
Judith continued to stare him straight in the eye as she shook her head slowly, deliberately. “Not justice. Justice was Jean-Claude going to jail for his crimes. I want revenge for the torture and murder of my brother. For the others that lost their lives that day. I’m well aware that my need for revenge makes me no better than he is, but I
will
find a way. My time will come. And I’m not going to let any innocent suffer because of my loss of humanity.”
Stefan regarded her for a long time in absolute silence, so long that Judith wasn’t certain he would respond. She’d told him the worst and refused to look away from him. He was a difficult man to read. His aquamarine eyes looked back into hers, but told her nothing at all. She heard the ticking of the clock and her stomach did a slow flip. She realized she didn’t want him to think so badly of her when she knew she deserved it.
“What kind of woman builds her life around revenge?” she whispered, hating the silence between them, hating that she couldn’t read his inscrutable expression.
“I know I have five wonderful women in my life. The farm. My painting and kaleidoscopes, both of which I love and have achieved some success in my chosen career, but it isn’t enough, it won’t ever be enough until Jean-Claude La Roux has suffered the way he made my brother suffer.”
The ticking of the clock grew louder. Her heart thudded hard in her chest until she could hear every beat thundering in her ears. She hadn’t realized until that moment how he’d already changed her. Laughter was real. She felt at ease in his company, she felt happy. She hadn’t really been happy since her brother’s death and maybe she was a little angry and guilty that she could actually be happy. What right did she have when Paul’s last hours had been excruciating agony?
She refused to lower her chin, or look away from Thomas. He was so utterly still, his gaze never leaving hers. She had confessed to save him—or to drive him away so she could keep her anger and hatred bottled up tight, locked away in a dark studio where no one would ever know her shameful secret.
Silence stretched between them until she wanted to scream with the terrible tension. Stefan stepped closer to her, his strong fingers curling around the nape of her neck. There was always such command in the way he touched her. This time was subtly different. This time there was possession as if she belonged to him.
Her heart jumped. She tasted fear. He wasn’t going to reject her and once he claimed her, she was forever set on a course. She wouldn’t be able to walk away from Thomas Vincent, not with the way her spirit responded to his. Now with the certain knowledge that he could handle her intense emotions and perhaps even help control them.
She shook her head and went to step back, away from him, away from the danger she instinctively knew she was in.
His hold on her tightened, keeping her still. “I understand you, Judith. The way you think and feel. I can handle every emotion you have and I can lessen the impact on anyone around us. I can shield others from the intensity. Who else can do that? You need me every bit as much as I need you. You need this man to suffer, I’m your man. You need to disappear and start over; we can do that as well. I’ve got you,
moi padshii angel
. Whatever happens, I’ve got you.”
Russian this time. My fallen angel. She had fallen. Judith felt as if the very devil was standing in front of her, offering her the world, and the price was her soul. He wasn’t handsome in the true sense of the word, not with all of his scars, but he was all male, sensual and compelling. He would never be a man who would allow her to walk all over him, nor could she manipulate him. There was far more to Thomas Vincent than she’d first thought.
“I don’t know you at all.” Her voice came out a shaky whisper.
“You know enough.”
“You should be running from this house. It’s called
self-preservation
, Thomas. I’m already damned. I’ve accepted that.”
“That’s bullshit, Judith. Revenge is a natural emotion when someone has gone through the trauma you have. You haven’t come face-to-face with the man who had your brother killed yet. You haven’t had the tool in your hands to do the things you want to do to him. There is no judgment or damnation for thinking about making someone suffer and die. That comes
after
you carry out your actual revenge. You may not go through with it when the time comes.”
She didn’t flinch. “I’ll go through with it.” There was steel in her tone this time.
She wasn’t going to back down, not even to make him want her. She wouldn’t lie to him, or drag him down with her. She’d lived in her own hell too long to allow anyone else to join her. The isolation and lie of her life was difficult enough without the weight of another terrible sin, dragging someone else down into the abyss with her.
“Until that time, Judith, don’t be so hard on yourself. Everyone, at sometime in their life, thinks of revenge. I certainly have done so.”
Looking into those cool, aquamarine eyes, she believed him. She found herself shivering. Thomas Vincent wasn’t
just
the innocent businessman she thought him. Whatever he’d done during his time in the service hadn’t been easy and he had a hard core of strength that went with his physical appearance.