Bad Boy of New Orleans (20 page)

She could feel him raise the emerald drop with his fingertip, holding the stone lightly,
as he had on her porch that night.

"Much better," he said in a gruff whisper.

No flowery speeches from Chance. Which suited him. Did he know how chivalrous he really
was, how he melted her with his directness of emotion, his maverick sense of honor?

She opened her eyes. "You move me," she said. "With your goodness, you move me."

"Then you see things I don't, that no one else ever has. But you make me feel..."
Chance shook his head. "I don't know what it is, Micah. But somehow you've always
managed to bring out the best in me."

"Maybe I do. But you're forgetting something very important."

"What's that?"

"If it wasn't in you to begin with, I couldn't bring it out."

She lay her head against the broadness of his chest then, and his arms came around
to hold her tightly against him. One hand slid up her back only to feather a soothing
caress against her cheek before stroking the emerald which dangled beside her ear.

* * *

Micah's gaze swung upward, encompassing the expanse of the bank. Had life ever been
so glorious? Could it have possibly turned out more right?

The sun reflected brilliant sparks of fire off the diamond-and-emerald engagement
ring on her finger. The dress she'd told Chance about was her next stop as soon as
she made this deposit and tidied up some untidy business.

She tried not to take too much pleasure in what she felt compelled to do.

The emeralds at her ears swung gaily to and fro as she paced her steps to the bank's
entrance. Her stomach was starting to give her fits as she silently ran through her
lines to be delivered to the esteemed Mr. Fields. Now that she was coming in on her
own terms, she was going to make sure he was squirming before she was through. If
she could intimidate him enough with the threat of sullying his reputation, maybe
he'd leave some other woman alone.

Micah took several deep, steadying breaths to prepare herself, trying to ignore the
sweating of her palms, and the small quiver in her legs as she strode closer to Ian
Fields' office.

Thelma looked up from her secretarial desk when Micah cleared her throat. "Micah,
hello! It's been so long since I've seen you. At least four months."

"That's about right. I just stopped by to make a deposit and thought I'd say hello
to Ian. Is he in?"

The gray-haired lady suddenly darted her eyes in either direction, as though looking
for spies. She peered up over the rims of her glasses, and gestured Micah closer.

"You haven't heard?" Thelma whispered.

"Heard what?"

"Mr. Fields is no longer with us."

"You're kidding," Micah blurted out. "Ian's been with the bank for over twenty years.
And he's not due to retire until—"

Thelma immediately made a hushing motion as Micah's voice carried in the surrounding
area.

"Let's just say he took a cut in his pension and opted for early retirement."

Micah could only open her mouth in disbelief. Nothing came out but a small exclamation
of denial. Something was wrong here. And in the back of her mind a niggling suspicion
kept trying to surface while she frantically tried to drown it out. There had to be
some explanation, some reason for Thelma to be acting so secretive. Some other reason
than the one that was twisting her stomach into tight knots of anxiety.

"When did he leave?" she managed to get out, past the constriction in her throat.

"About a month after your last visit. It was very unexpected. A lot of talking was
going on behind closed doors. Mr. Fields delivered his resignation to the board of
directors and left almost immediately. That's all I know. There's a lot of speculation,
but the staff wasn't really informed about anything, not even me. They kept it pretty
vague." She motioned Micah a little closer and whispered conspiratorially, "Word has
it he was ousted for unprofessional conduct during office hours."

Micah shut her eyes, trying to ignore the way her hair was prickling at the nape of
her neck, and the dizzy sensation wrapping itself around her brain. Fuzzy, keep it
fuzzy. She shouldn't start Imagining things. Try not to put two and two together—that
he just happened to leave soon after the incident... that Chance just happened to
be there right after it happened... that Chance was on the bank's board of directors...
that she had caught him in the middle of a heated call that morning.

"Micah, are you all right?" Thelma got up, her face showing maternal concern as Micah
opened her eyes again. She struggled to steady the awkward tilt of the room.

"Oh, fine, Thelma. Just fine... I... I have to go now. It was nice seeing you again...
Goodbye."

She turned as quickly as she dared with the buzzing in her ears making everything
seem not quite real. A few people greeted her, and the best she could muster was a
vague nod as she headed for... where? Her car, right? But then... where?

She got in the car and just drove. Not sure where she was going, not even able to
think past Thelma's words which kept repeating themselves in her head.

A horn blared and instinctively she slammed on her brakes. Somebody whizzed past,
and yelled out the window, "Learn to drive, you idiot!"

The near collision left her shaking. She had to get off the road. Driving was no place
to take her confusion, her numbness, her rising anger that her suspicions were possibly
true.

She had to talk to him, she told herself. Maybe she'd understood wrong. It couldn't
be the way she thought, it just couldn't....

Very carefully she drove to Chance's office. Getting out of her car, she could feel
the reluctance in her to confront him, afraid of what she might learn.

"Hi, Micah! Mr. Renault just stepped out, but he should be back in a minute. Would
you like to wait out here?"

She wasn't up to chatting with the vivacious Mrs. Allen. "Thanks, but I think I'll
just wait in his office."

The secretary nodded and looked at her a little strangely. Micah wondered if her distress
was showing. It should be—she was strung up so tight she couldn't even sit.

She let herself into Chance's office. Looking around, it seemed to reflect the man—the
heavy, masculine furniture, the piles of neatly stacked papers, the expensive cigars
he kept on hand for associates. Everything in order, and seeming to scream of power
and control.

She couldn't stop pacing, running off the nervous energy that was begging her to trench
a rut through the carpet. What if he'd done it, then what? Could she still marry him,
somehow live with whatever excuses he had this time for his behavior? Could she leave
Chance?

The questions were demanding answers when the door opened and shut quietly behind
her. She swung around anxiously, crossing her arms protectively over her chest.

"Micah! I thought you were—"

"What do you know about Ian Fields' resignation?"

Chance had been coming toward her but now he stopped. Dead in his tracks. The hands
he had outstretched in greeting dropped automatically to his sides.

"I had him fired."

Boom. He dropped the bomb. Quietly, efficiently, as though ruining someone's life
had no more importance than signing a memo and filing it under 'Flies I have Swatted.'
His face was impassive.

She opened her mouth. She closed it. There weren't any words she could find to express
her anger and disappointment. And then Micah knew how desperately she'd been hoping
the signs were wrong, that he hadn't done it after all. But he had.

"Aren't you going to say something, Micah? Berate me for being so callous, so coldhearted?
Tell me what a mean thing it was to get rid of such a sweet old man?" She stared at
him wide-eyed, clenching her fist and jaw in unison. He gestured to the paperweight
close beside her on the desk. "Go ahead. Pick it up and throw it at me. I know you're
mad. You have a right to be... to a point."

"You... you—" she sputtered, then grasped on to the core of it. She flung the words
at him in sheer exasperation, gritted them out with mounting fury.
"Why,
Chance? Everything was good between us, and now
this.
Is this what I can expect from our marriage with you? Never knowing what kind of
terrible secrets I'll discover next? Always having to be afraid of opening the wrong
drawer or hearing something you've done that I'm ashamed of?"

"Ashamed?" He strode toward her briskly, his fist clenching and jaw working to match
hers. They stood toe-to-toe, each glaring at the other. "If anyone should feel ashamed,
it's Fields. Not me. Or you."

"No? Who gave you the right to play God? Since when were you so almighty pure yourself
that you were in a position to pass that kind of judgment?"

"Go ahead and say whatever it is you're itching to get out, Micah. Say it straight."
He kept his voice low, dangerously low.

"I'm talking about ethics, Chance. Morals."

His eyes slitted, and Micah knew she'd hit hard. Some kind of defense went up, hardening
his features and deflecting her words like a bulletproof vest.

"Ethics and morals, huh? Something I wouldn't know about, right? Well, I've got news
for you. Believe it or not, those two things had a lot to do with my decision to ax
Fields. Think about it, Micah. What he did... was it ethical? Moral? And did it possibly
occur to you that something like this might have happened before, or could again with
someone else? Possibly someone not as strong as yourself? In my book what he did was
wrong."

She swallowed hard. Why did he have to be so sure of himself, so overbearing about
it? And why, came the distressing thought, did it bother her so much that he was possibly
right? Chance was too near, he had too much of a hold on her to think straight, that
was it, wasn't it? Micah took a self-protective step back, the desk hitting the backs
of her thighs and closing off any possible exit. His gaze was as unwavering as his
apparent belief in his own rightness. He crossed his arms obstinately over his chest.

She wanted to feel angry still, but even now she could feel the splinters of her hostility
diminishing, her own conviction of rightness begin to question itself.

"Are you really so sure that you made the right choice? Don't you ever have self-doubts
about the things you do?"

"Sure, I have self-doubts. Not often, though. And I don't go around screwing with
other people's lives the way you seem to think I do. When I
do
make those kinds of decisions, I make damn sure they're warranted. I looked into
Fields' background after he fessed up about what he'd done... it wasn't the first
time, Micah."

"You mean... he confessed?"

"Of course. After I led him to believe you'd already told me, he tried to get his
side of the story told. He made it sound as if you'd practically begged him to accept
your favors in exchange for a personal loan. And once he got going, I couldn't get
the man to stop talking about the other women who he found his way clear to make loans
for. For certain considerations."

Chance walked slowly now, closing the distance. He stood close, so close she had to
tilt her head to meet his searching gaze. "You have no idea how I would have loved
to punch him. Unfortunately I just referred him to the board and let them handle him."

Her anger at him was gone. In his own renegade way he'd protected her. And other women
too. No doubt in another time Chance would have sheathed his lance into Ian or thrown
down the gauntlet for a duel at dawn. Yet, she wanted to stand up for herself sometimes.

"Your protectiveness can go too far, Chance."

"Perhaps. But you'll have to tell me when it does. We've got a lot of years ahead
of us—years I have no intention to waste by arguing over the small things."

He looked at her again. "How did you happen to find out about this today? Could it
be that you had your own plans for vengeance now that you had some money in hand?"

Micah blushed, shamed.

He was right. She had burned for vengeance. Just as he had. But it was easier to blame
him for going too far than facing up to her own hostilities.

"We're at the end of the line,
ma cherie.
With us it's all or nothing. You've put me through hell and back, and I can't do
that number anymore. Tell me, tell me now. Just where do
your
loyalties lie? With me? They have to be for this to work. That
is
what marriage is all about. Acceptance. Love. Compassion. Respect. Understanding."

Understanding.

"I try to understand you, Chance. You don't make it easy."

"What don't you understand?" He came closer, leaning his arms on either side of the
desk to trap her there. She could feel her love for him bridging the confusion, far
overriding the safeness, the emptiness of life without him.

"Why you go to such extremes... why you have to hold so tight to what you love."

He closed his eyes for a moment, and in that moment there was a hesitance in him,
something she'd never witnessed before. And then he did open his eyes, revealing so
much, telling all in the naked starkness of fear and pain she never would have thought
to see in him, letting her see straight through, down to his very soul.