Red Hot Christmas (25 page)

“Listen, I can disappear. Make this whole thing go away. I don’t have family or friends in town. No one will know.” She swung her legs one over the other, and scooted to the edge of the bed. The gown exposed her, and a wave of heat spread across her neck and cheeks. She reached for the blanket and covered her dangling legs. But as she twisted, the floor suddenly seemed further away not closer. She put a hand to her head. Had to be the painkillers. Damn it. “You don’t have to worry about me, and you can hire a security team to guarantee no one ever comes close to you.”
 

He placed both hands on his hips and shook his head. “It’s not that simple. You were attacked after you contacted me. Something is off, and I’m not letting you out of my sight until I find out what,” he said firmly, like there was no room for negotiation.
 

Say what?
A nervous laugh floated up her throat. “That’s cute, but I’ve been responsible for myself since I got out of the womb of the kind lady who handed me to Child Services. And I’ve been doing just fine.”
Sort of.

“I’ve called a private investigator I trust. He’ll help me try to figure things out.”
 

 
“Did you not hear one word I said? I’ll be okay,” she said, her voice trailing off. She would give the few thousand dollars kept in her checking account to believe her own lie. Ever since she’d been a kid…she would have given anything to believe hope wasn’t just a four-letter word.
 

“Yes, you will be okay. I’ll make sure of it. I’m flying to spend Christmas with my family in Buenos Aires tomorrow morning; you’re coming with me. A few days’ time is what my guy needs to figure this out. Maybe less, we’ll see. Meanwhile, I’ll personally keep you out of trouble and safe.”

“No chance of that, Hot Shot.” She gave him a sideways glance. “I don’t even know you. I can’t go on a trip with you. For all I know, you can be a hit man, or an extremely good-looking guy with a weird secretive foot fetish.”
 

A smile formed on his lips. “I’m not a hit man. And judging by the work boots you had on earlier...you’re safe from any foot fetish pervert.”

She curled her sparkly blue polished toes, the self-consciousness hitting her like a kick boxer. Working in the EMS industry meant sturdy, safe shoes instead of the thin stilettos the girls he dated probably wore. She blinked. Who gave a crap what kind of woman he went out with?
Not me
. “I’m surprised you even noticed them.” She removed the IV drip and tried to ignore the pain as the needle left her skin. Carefully, she held onto the raised nightstand, her fingers gripping the wood. She got down from the bed. The movement almost made her lose balance, when she realized her head weighed a ton while her body was light. Too light.

“Here.” He touched the small of her back, and then led her to the sofa. “Have a seat.” The touch of his fingers on her set little thrills of excitement she wasn’t familiar with. Sure, she had experienced sex before she went to jail. But this was… different. The warmth of his skin sifted through the hospital gown, and somehow branded her. Craziness. She had to be under the effect of strong meds, otherwise she would had turned down his help.
 

She plopped down on the sofa, and again the sensation of falling from a thirty-story building assailed her.
 

He leaned on the couch across from her, as if he owned the place. It was like he occupied sixty percent of the room. She peered at him over her shoulder. No, make that seventy-five percent.
 

“Ask me anything you want to know.”

Anything…
 

She shook her head, shoving curiosity to the side. “I don’t want to know. I want to forget this whole thing happened and move on.”
 

“Sydney, I won’t risk leaving you here or having you go anywhere on your own. If something happens to you…I wouldn’t forgive myself. Trust me, I’ve learned my lesson of being proactive in situations like this. Two people have died and someone came over here to hurt you. If you’re right and this mess has anything to do with me, I’m already to blame.”

“You said you lost someone too,” she said, her voice softer than cotton candy. With a deep breath, she sagged against the comfortable sofa, still trying to understand her own question. Spontaneity wasn’t her thing. So why did she mention the memory as quickly as it came to her? “It was Frank, right? Were you very close to him?” she continued, then chewed the inside of her cheek.
 

“No.” He shoved his hand in his pocket, and a smile that had the power to shrink her heart touched his lips. “It was my cousin, Amparo.”

“Oh.” The sound escaped her mouth before she rationalized it. “I’m…sorry. Was it recent?”
 

He shook his head, and stared at the floor. She’d bet her hard-earned money that the wound was still fresh and untreated no matter how long ago it had happened. “I wasn’t able to help her. You, on the other hand—”

“Listen. I really appreciate you being the good guy here, but there’s no way I’m coming with you.”

“Trust me, I’m not being a good anything,” he said with a trace of bitterness in his voice, and ran his fingers through his hair. “I just want to ensure your safety until we find your attacker. Which is why we’ll stay at my mom’s place. It’s a Christmas tradition.”

 
“I don’t believe in Christmas, or in traditions.” Wasn’t enduring Christmas songs any time she walked in a grocery store enough? Christmas was the painful evidence of everything she didn’t have. Parents, family, connections.
 

He pulled his phone from his pocket and touched the screen. Her gaze dropped to his long, tanned fingers sliding over the screen. He had beautiful hands. She straightened her shoulders and took a swig of water.
 

“So you won’t be offended to come on over and observe ours.”

He switched the setting to speaker mode and she heard the phone ring on the other side.
 

“
Hola
.” The mature voice of a female came over the line.
 

“
Madre
, I’m here with my good friend Sydney. I’ve invited her to come over for Christmas, but she’s quite…” He gave her a once-over. “Shy.”
 

 
“A girl? That’s fantastic. Yes. Yes. Bring her.”

He was calling his mother? Gathering her courage, she surged to her feet, reached for her bedside table, and poured more water into the plastic cup.
 

“Sydney? Are you there?” The cultured South American accent again.

Sydney clasped the cup in her hand, and when she sat on the couch, it was like freefalling from a rooftop. Was he for real? Calling his mother and making her talk to her on speaker? Well, serial killers and everyday jerks had mothers too. Still…seemed the man wasn’t kidding when he said he wanted to protect her from another attack. Or worse. The thought brought her surprising comfort.
 

“Yes,” she said. “Hi.”

“We’d love to meet you. It’s about time Alejandro—”

“Okay,
Madre.
Got it.
Gracias.
” He said a couple more lines in Spanish and hung up the phone. “Sydney, you’ll have your own room, and my family will be there. Your luscious little toes are safe from my imaginary foot fetish antics. We’ll keep you safe while we figure out what really happened with Frank and Patty.”

Yes
. Sydney had been sent to jail for one year for a crime she didn’t commit. There was no way to turn back time, to rewind and erase all her pain. The shared showers, and the violence. Would she let Patty’s death be overlooked? If there was a way she could find out who killed Patty, why wouldn’t she?
I owe it to her.
“My answer is still no. I can’t go with you.”
 

“I’ll protect you.”
 

That possibility brought a sour taste to her mouth. Protection? That she wasn’t used to.
 

“If you’re stubborn, I’ll have to do what we both don’t want—call the police and let them take care of it. They may even choose to keep an eye on you.”

A knock on the door made her shake the cup in her hand, and the water almost splashed out.
 

“Social assistant. May I come in?” a female voice asked.
 

“Yes,” Sydney said, a bit too quickly.
 

A friendly blonde lady in her forties walked into the room. A gold and red vest filled with sparkling buttons covered her business-y attire. “Hi. I’m Mary Combs, and I need to speak to you in private, Sydney, and ask you some routine questions.”
 

Chapter 3

Alejandro gave himself a couple seconds after the assistant walked out of the room before knocking on the door. Sure, he had noticed a bit of vulnerability spark her gorgeous hazel eyes when she woke up in the hospital. But, when he had tried to convince her to go with him, she didn’t act like she would. Shit.
 

Leaving her behind was not an option. A familiar acidy sensation unsettled his stomach. The image of a smiling Amparo flashed through his brain. No. Shaking his head, he strode into the room.
 

Sydney sat at on the chair, shoulders straight and hands drumming on her knees. Dressed in the same jeans and shirt from earlier, she had tossed the gown on the bed, between the rumpled sheets. “Hot Shot. We need to talk.”
 

He frowned at the silly nickname, but hell, hadn’t he been called worse? “Shoot.”

Could she have talked about what happened with the social assistant? The lady had given him an ugly look when he had introduced himself to her, back when Sydney was still asleep. Did Mary think he had been the one who knocked her against the cupboard and clocked her head?

 
“I called work to let them know I’m not going in tonight.”
 

“Yeah?” Angling toward her, he held his breath. The functional lamp was on, and it shone down on her scarlet hair. When she tucked a strand behind her ear, the desire to stretch his hand and feel the texture of her tresses caused him to clench his fist.
 

“My supervisor said a woman had called saying she was my cousin from New Hampshire. I don’t have any cousins. Anywhere.”

He sucked in a breath. “What did she want?”
 

“My home address to send flowers for Patty’s passing.”

“Whoever is up to this, knows where you work. And live.”
 

“Exactly. Listen, I need you to promise whoever you hired will find this person.”

“Of course,” he said. Could this be a series of unfortunate events? Sure, but would he risk it? Would he go to Argentina and leave behind a woman who could be an easy target? Cancelling his Christmas plans was not an option. As much as his mother’s overbearing ways annoyed him, he was all she had. His father had died twenty-four years ago—and ever since, he had made sure he’d be home for Christmas. “I need to keep an eye on you Sydney. You should sleep at my place tonight. To make sure you’re safe.”
 

“Tonight? Your place?”

“I’m leaving for Buenos Aires tomorrow. You will come with me just for a few days. I could book you a hotel room, but given the circumstances, I’d rather keep you close.”

She folded her arms and upped her brow at him. “How close?”

“You will get your own room. Your toes are off-limits, remember?” he said playfully, but her lips remained pursed. “Sydney, if I wanted to hurt you, I would have. I wouldn’t have brought you to a hospital to be assessed by doctors.”

Perhaps instinctively, she lifted her hand to her head, and touched the swollen bruise on her forehead. “Fine. But if I change my mind and say I want to come back, I do. No questions asked.”
 

“Fair enough.”
 

All through the hospital discharge and the quick stop at her apartment to gather a few things, his mind had worked in overdrive. What was Frank trying to tell him? Why would he be apologetic at his deathbed? The press had screwed Alejandro with Carla’s fake domestic abuse allegations. Who cared that she had been legally forced to retract her lies? That had ended up being a small footnote in daily newspapers. The doubt about his character lurked, and his uncle’s opponents were banking on that. After all, ever since his father’s death, Alejandro had been like a son to his uncle—an irony, since he had been the one responsible for his uncle’s daughter’s death. What if the press got a hold of that information as well, and used it against the campaign? Alejandro wasn’t running himself, but he had made sizable donations and given his uncle unbridled support.
 

 
“Come in.” He motioned for Sydney to enter his loft in Lincoln Park. The hallway lights turned on automatically as they walked into his place, and while he enjoyed the minimalist décor—a set of sand colored sofas, skinny standing lamps and glass tables encircling his state-of-the art home entertainment system—he wished it was more homey. Maybe this way she wouldn’t study the place, scanning the scattered closed boxes on the hall, and unopened correspondence tossed on the console table.
 

“Did you move recently?”

“I bought this place a year ago. I meant to buy it as an investment, but then I decided to give Chicago a try.”