For the Love of Family (16 page)

B
ELLE AWOKE TO THE
sound of the doorbell ringing.

And ringing, and ringing.

It took a minute to remember where she was. And with whom.

And…her skin shivered deliciously…
why
.

Matt was sound asleep beside her, the sheet tugged across his hips, his strong, dark legs bare and disturbingly sensual.

She squinted at her watch. Though the apartment was in pitch darkness, it was only about nine-thirty. She thought, her brain still oddly muddled, that it might be Pandora at the door. Or maybe even her mother.

Belle tried to remember how many articles of clothing she and Matt had left on the living room floor.

She grabbed a robe from the closet, slinging it on while she quietly shut the bedroom door. Then she rushed around, scooping up slips and skirts and panties as she darted through the room.

In the split second before she opened the front door, she faced the fact that it might be her father.

Well, too bad. She hadn’t ever chosen her mother’s peacekeeper tactics. Belle hadn’t ever ducked a fight
when her father insisted on one. If he dared to comment on her love life, she would be glad to explain just exactly how much it wasn’t his business.

She opened the door before the bell could ring again. She’d be glad to go toe-to-toe with her dad in the entry, but she didn’t want Matt to wake up.

But of course, because nothing was ever that simple, it wasn’t her dad.

It was David. He looked on edge, almost angry, though David didn’t ordinarily do anger. It had been one of his biggest selling points.

“God, Belle, I’ve been trying to get you for hours. Why aren’t you answering your cell?”

She tried to remember…. She’d switched it off when she got to the hospital. She had meant to turn it back on to check for the cab company’s phone number, but then Matt had appeared.

“I guess I left it off,” she said, adjusting the collar on her robe awkwardly. The brand label appeared to be on the outside. “But what’s so urgent? Is something wrong?”

“Yes, something’s wrong!” He ran his hand through his hair. “It’s my client, the one who wants to sue Diamante. He’s missing. He’s been depressed lately, and his wife is really worried. She’s afraid he might be going after Malone himself.”

“Surely not,” Belle breathed. “That would be insane.”

David grimaced. “Desperate people do insane things. Look, Belle, I need to know if you’ve found anything on Todd Kirkland. You haven’t answered my e-mails. I don’t know whether you’ve been able to unearth anything
about the fund. If you have, I need to know. If we find him, it might help him to know we’re making progress.”

“I haven’t,” she said, flushing. “I’m sorry. It’s been busy, and I—”

“Damn it.” David looked crestfallen. “Can I come in? I want to call his wife, but I don’t want to talk out here—”

“It’s not really a good time,” she began.

David finally seemed to see past his own distress and to assimilate what he was looking at. She tried to picture it: a dark apartment, a woman with wild hair, makeup kissed completely off, a robe tossed on inside out…standing ankle deep in discarded clothes, some of them obviously male.

“You’re—you’re with someone?”

“David, I’m sorry,” she repeated.

She didn’t know what else to say. She wouldn’t have had him stumble into this for anything in the world. She would have died rather than hurt him again. But she didn’t want to discuss this now.

And then, behind her, she heard the sound her subconscious had been dreading since the moment she saw David Gerard standing on her front stoop.

The sound of her bedroom door opening.

David’s eyes moved toward the noise. After a split second’s confusion, they widened. His mouth opened and hung there.

And that was the end of her last hope, the off chance he didn’t know what Matt Malone looked like.

“Jesus, Belle,” David said bitterly.

She glanced over her shoulder, hugging the crumpled clothes to her pounding heart with her left hand. Matt
stood in the doorway, casually leaning against the jamb. He wore only his jeans, feet and torso bare. In his hands he was holding…

He was holding the framed earring.

Her heart was about to explode. She couldn’t see how any of this could end well, but she had to try. “David, look, I’m sorry, but I just can’t talk about this now—”

“Yeah, my showing up while His Highness is still here is quite the inconvenience, isn’t it?”

“Listen. Please. David.”

He shook his head, almost inarticulate with a fury she’d thought he didn’t possess. “You’ve been
busy
? Sorry, Belle, but what you’ve been is seduced. You’ve been
had
. This son of a bitch has charmed you right out of your clothes
and
your ethics. You haven’t had
time
to investigate Todd Kirkland? What a crock!”

Flinching, she glanced over her shoulder again, knowing that Matt had heard every syllable. Especially the damning words
Todd Kirkland
.

Matt’s head was tilted, making him look slightly bemused. But it was an act, because his eyes had the merciless, stone-cold stare of an executioner.

He looked at her, then at David, and then once more at the little framed box he held in his hand.

“Matt, I…”

Slowly, he smiled. It didn’t look like any smile she’d ever seen on his face before. It put even her father’s sardonic grins to shame.

And then he started to laugh.

“What’s so funny, Malone?” David’s fair face was reddening. He was a smart man. He knew that laugh
had nothing to do with humor, and everything to do with contempt.

He just didn’t understand that the contempt wasn’t directed at him. It was directed at Belle.

“Matt,” she began again, her heart racing. Then she uttered the three little words that had been the death of so many relationships. “I can explain.”

“No, really,” Matt said, letting the laughter die off to a bitter chuckle. “There’s no need. I’ve been a fool for a long time now, but I think I’m finally wising up.”

“You don’t understand—”

“Of course I do. It was brilliantly done, Belle.” He came over to the door, and handed the framed earring to her. When she couldn’t raise her free hand to take it, he raised it for her and placed the box firmly against her palm, wrapping her fingers around it.

“I think my only question is whether you’ve hated me ever since that night. Did it injure your pride, my falling asleep? Have you been waiting ever since for an opportunity to extract a little cold revenge?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” David moved into the room, as if, in spite of everything, he couldn’t stand by and allow someone to speak harshly to Belle.

But Matt ignored him as completely as if he’d been invisible, like a gnat that didn’t even buzz on his frequency. Matt plucked his shirt from the floor and began shrugging it on, his face thoughtful.

“Or was it simply coincidence that taking a job with me gave you a chance to reinstate yourself as an investigative journalist? Or…maybe the simplest explanation is the best. Maybe everything is a charade with you.”

“You’re wrong,” she said. “So wrong.”

“No, I’m your classic horny male moron, but I’m not wrong.” He reached out and touched her face. “It’s okay, little Cleo. A lot of people get a thrill out of pretending to be something they’re not. And how nice that, this time, I could get a thrill out of it, too.”

T
WO WEEKS LATER
, on the Friday before the last of Diamante’s beach events, Belle read a news brief in the paper reporting that Todd Kirkland had resigned as manager of Diamante’s Drivers Fund.

The newspaper had no details, apparently accepting at face value Kirkland’s statement that he needed to spend more time with his wife, who had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. The article didn’t even hint, in that time-honored way journalists had of suggesting something they weren’t legally able to say straight out, that there had been any monkey business with the fund.

Still, she wanted to know the truth.

Calling Diamante was obviously not possible. She hadn’t heard from Matt since the night David came to her door, bringing his tale of betrayal that was almost true. Just true enough to hang her.

After that disastrous night, she hadn’t needed to hear that she was fired. She’d simply called George and thanked him for giving her a chance at Diamante, saying it wasn’t going to work out. He’d wanted to know more, of course, but she’d kept it short and sweet.

She couldn’t even ask George what had happened with Kirkland, not unless she was ready to volunteer information of her own in return.

So she went to the only place she could think of.

She went to David Gerard.

She arrived at his office just before five, when she knew he’d be finished with clients, and settling in for the quiet work: research, brief-writing, correspondence. Amanda, his paralegal, looked a little nervous, but waved Belle through, probably hoping she had arrived for a reconciliation.

Amanda and Belle had been friends.

As Belle entered, David looked up from his computer. He didn’t smile.

“Sorry to bother you,” she said. She didn’t take a chair, and he didn’t offer one.

“I thought you might call.” He tapped the newspaper folded on the right corner of his desk, as always. He kept a neat office, just as he’d always kept a neat apartment. “When the article ran, I mean. I didn’t think you’d actually make the trip.”

She smiled. “I wasn’t sure you wouldn’t hang up on me.”

He tapped his pencil against his keyboard a minute, then sighed, dropped it and swiveled to face her. “I wouldn’t have,” he said. “Sit down. We aren’t enemies.”

She sat. His chair was comfortable and expensive, and familiar. She’d sat here a hundred times, waiting for him to finish up some work before they rode home together.

It seemed like a lifetime ago.

“I’m sorry, David. I did try to get you some information, but I just couldn’t bring myself to follow through. And about Matt…well…I’m sorry about that, too. I wouldn’t have wanted you to find out in such an awkward way.”
“No, you don’t have to apologize,” he said. “I’ve been thinking it through. I overreacted that night. I don’t sleep in your bed anymore, and I have no right to judge who does. And you never promised me anything about Kirkland, either. I was just…disappointed.”

“Thanks,” she said. “I appreciate it.”

He looked uncomfortable, as if he was well aware they’d only skimmed the surface of what had happened that night. For one thing, he’d always wondered why she kept that framed earring, and he was probably dying of curiosity now, though he’d never admit it.

She would have told him, but it was such a ridiculous, embarrassing story. And it still hurt too much even to think about it. She’d put the earring in her bedroom wastebasket that night, but like a fool had taken it out again in the morning. She’d settled for burying it at the bottom of her winter underwear drawer.

“I hear you’ve left Diamante, too.” David was somber. “I’m sorry. I feel as if that’s my fault. I shouldn’t have mentioned Kirkland. It was a stupid slip.”

She looked at him with a small smile, but didn’t say anything.

“Okay,” he said, cracking as easily as he always had. He was a terrible liar, and worked scrupulously hard to be honest, even to himself, about himself. “I know it wasn’t a slip. I was stung, seeing another man come walking out of that bedroom. I wanted to sting back.”

It took courage to be that direct. She admired that, and so much else about him. He really was a very nice man.

But now that she’d discovered what real love felt like, she was astonished that she’d ever believed she
could make a life out of even the warmest admiration. She’d been wrong to try. It had encouraged him to hope, and that had been selfish.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I put myself in that position, and I got what I deserved. I should never have agreed to look into Kirkland in the first place. Matt was right. I was trying to have it both ways…paying the rent with his job while I tried to worm my way back into the newspaper business. It was crummy. I was a fool to do it.”

David shrugged. Clearly he still didn’t like to hear anyone criticize her…even Belle herself. “So I guess you want to know what happened? With Kirkland, I mean?”

“Yeah. Whatever you’re free to tell.”

“Honestly, I don’t know much, not for a fact. I suspect plenty, but here’s what I know. My client, who came home safely at dawn that night, by the way, drunk as a skunk but in one piece, has decided not to sue. I met with Diamante’s lawyer, coincidently another guy named Malone.”

“That would be Colby.”

David smiled. “Yeah. Well, I’m not on a first-name basis, like you are. But I met with the guy, who seems pretty straight up. He wanted all the information, and he opened the discussion by offering my client—” David paused and raised his eyebrows “—what we lawyers call a sizable sum.”

“A pay-off?”

“I don’t know. Somehow I don’t really think so. No one admitted it, but if you ask me, they looked into this Kirkland bastard on their own, and probably found all kinds of irregularities in the fund. My client tells me that several of his friends, other drivers whose requests for
aid had been turned down, have been compensated in the past couple of weeks.”

David opened his hands. “Next thing I hear, Lawyer Malone calls to tell me Todd Kirkland has decided to retire. Lawyer talk for he’s guilty as sin, but now that we’ve gelded him, we’re letting him go because he’s a family friend.”

Belle nodded. Sounded about right. “So, in the end, you got justice, which is even better than winning a case, right?”

He nodded in turn.

“What are you planning to do now?”

David laughed. “I’m going to take a vacation. I’m thinking Bermuda, not that I can afford it, since I waived my usual percentage of this guy’s settlement. Still, I hear there are all kinds of hot chicks in Bermuda.”