White Hot (22 page)

“No, it makes perfect sense. One, I’m not your type. I’m a publicist. You’re a hard-news journalist. I live and work in Palm Beach. You work for a tough, urban newspaper, and you live with Bennie and Albert and Sal.”

“I don’t live
with
them. We simply share the same building.”

“Because you don’t care where you live. It’s immaterial. Jeremiah, I grew up with people like you.”

“Are you comparing me to your parents?” He laughed, giving a mock shudder. “I need another margarita.”

“You’ve never even met my parents.”

“They’re violinists. Flakes.”

“The point is,” she said, refusing to be distracted, “that you and I have and want different things out of life. I listened to
Carmina Burana
on the way down here. I looked at your CD collection while you were in the shower. Rock, blues, jazz. All stuff I like, but no classical, which I love, which I used to
live.
”

He frowned. “How can you live classical music?”

She threw up her hands. “There. I rest my case.”

“Mollie, you have no case.”

“I do. The reason you and I would have ended up in bed together is because of some kind of hormonal memory or something. Probably some chemical. A throwback to our week together. You know, it was so fast and furious that—” No, best not to go down that road. She grabbed the pepper shaker. “I’m sure it’s chemical.”

“Right.”

She felt warm and tried to blame the soup. “Well, that was the first reason why we wouldn’t have ended up in bed if we already hadn’t. The second reason is business. You’re more experienced than you were ten years ago. You wouldn’t sleep with me now because it’s too risky. It’d look bad. You’ve a reputation to maintain.”

“Mollie.” He leaned across the table, the candlelight bringing out even more colors in his eyes. A fiery yellow, a gleam of black. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about my precious reputation. I do what I do because I think it’s right. Ten years ago, I thought it was right to sleep with you. Twenty minutes ago, I didn’t. Twenty hours from now…” He shrugged. “Who knows?”

She swallowed, her throat dry. “What about me?”

“You’ll have your say.”

Just as she did ten years ago. She’d been caught up in her righteous anger over his duplicity for so long that she’d neatly forgotten how solicitous he’d been about making sure she knew what she was doing, wanted it. It was that same peculiar sense of honor that had compelled him, a week later, to tell her he’d used her to get his first front-page story when he hadn’t. He’d tried to spare her regrets that he simply didn’t realize he had no power to spare.

The waiter brought their meals, and Mollie inhaled the delicious smells of the fried plantains, yellow rice, and grilled lime chicken. Jeremiah ordered another margarita. She asked for more water and seized the opportunity to make a smooth transition out of a subject she’d stupidly brought up. “Tell me about this Croc character and why he’s above suspicion and I’m not.”

“I never said he was above suspicion.” Jeremiah sipped his margarita, his expression all business, the professional journalist at work. “I go where the facts lead me. I’ve know Croc for about two years. He thinks of himself as my secret weapon.”

“But you didn’t put him up to following me,” Mollie said.

“No, that was his brilliant idea.”

“Because
he
suspects me.”

“Croc suspects everyone. It’s his nature. He doesn’t have much faith in people.”

“He must in you.”

Jeremiah set down his margarita, suddenly looking troubled, distracted. “That doesn’t give me a great deal of comfort, you know.”

Mollie considered his words. “You don’t want to feel responsible for him.”

“I’m
not
responsible for him. What Croc does, Croc does on his own.”

“But if he’s living vicariously through you—”

“He’s not. He just brings me what he hears.”

“What’s his real name?”

“He says it’s Blake Wilder. I don’t know if it is or isn’t. I don’t even know where he lives.”

Mollie started on her food, which was hot, spicy, and perfect for her mood. She felt that Jeremiah’s relationship with his young source was more complicated than he was willing to admit. She wanted to press him, but when Jeremiah commented on the food, she took the hint and let the subject shift to innocuous things. Favorite restaurants, the weather, movies they’d recently seen, books they’d recently read. Mollie found him insightful, thoughtful, less black-and-white in his outlook than she would have expected. A man of many different facets was Jeremiah Tabak. She’d had such a straightforward, uncomplicated view of him for so long that getting used to him as a complex, real, live, breathing man wasn’t easy.

He paid for dinner. He insisted, because if they hadn’t had to leave on short notice he’d have cooked for her. Mollie didn’t remind him that she’d never expected to stay for dinner at all.

She relished the warm evening air on the walk back to his apartment, enjoyed the bustle of the crowded streets, imagined how different a late February night in Boston would be. A year ago, she’d have worked late, maybe gone out for dinner with friends, or to a concert with her parents or sister. There had been no steady man in her life. Jeremiah Tabak was a distant, if still very real, memory.

There wasn’t a steady man now, she reminded herself, glancing at Jeremiah as he strode beside her, preoccupied with his own thoughts. She had no illusions. He was driven and utterly focused on one thing: investigating the Gold Coast thefts. Just because he couldn’t do the story didn’t mean it didn’t absorb him. The physical part of their relationship was just an extension of that focus and drive. If it became a distraction, something apart from the story, it would end. The story determined everything. And when it ended, so would his interest in her. As much as he might want to believe she was his reason for being on the jewel thief story, she wasn’t.
He
was the reason. His need to know things, his need to unravel and solve and figure out and just know.

When they arrived back at his building, the guys were all still outside, Bennie smoking a fat, putrid-smelling cigar. “Old habit,” he said. “My wife never let me smoke inside.”

Jeremiah turned to Mollie, his eyes flat now, lost in the shadows, his voice low. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

She shook her head. “There’s no need. It’s right there.” She pointed across and down the street. She smiled. “Thank you for dinner. I enjoyed myself.” She drew in a breath, so aware of him standing close, silent. “Of course, it was business.”

“ ’Course. I’ll deduct dinner from my taxes.” He winked, smiling. “You can sit out here with the guys for a while, if you want. Good night, Mollie.”

She felt three pairs of old-man eyes on her. “Good night, Jeremiah.”

He headed inside, and Mollie frowned, wondering what had possessed her to drive to South Beach in the first place. Sal, the ex-priest, settled back in his rickety chair and said thoughtfully, “He’s afraid to want something he doesn’t have because he might lose it.”

“Nah,” Albert said, “he’s just got to be jerked up by the balls and forced to pay attention to what’s important. Reporters, you know?”

Bennie shook his head. “Jeremiah’s an honorable man. He wants to do what’s right. He’s not going to press himself on a woman if he doesn’t think it’s right.”

“Jesus,” Sal said, “you’re making the lady blush.”

Albert grinned at Mollie. “It’s not like we have this conversation every week with a woman.”

“He hasn’t been right lately,” Bennie said. “You can tell by his whittling. You see that?” He picked up a carved piece of something that looked vaguely like a palm tree. “He can whittle better than that. He was just hacking. His mind was somewhere else.”

Meaning, presumably, Mollie thought, on her. But she expected it was more likely on the jewel thief story and her potential role in it, Croc’s behavior, his own next move. Jeremiah would love a story he could chew on, that would occupy him fully.

“Go on upstairs.” Albert gave her an encouraging nod. “We have coffee and bagels down here at eight every morning. You can come sit with us and tell us how things worked out.”

“You’re a dirty old man, Albert,” Bennie told him, his putrid cigar tucked between thumb and forefinger.

Sal shrugged off both their comments and turned to Mollie. “Jeremiah needs more for company than reptiles and us old men. That much we know. I’m just not sure he knows it—or is willing to take the risk of hurting himself, and you, to admit it.”

He seemed so sincere, so certain. Finally, Mollie nodded and without a word went back inside and upstairs to Jeremiah’s apartment. What happened next, she thought, happened. But she wasn’t ready to climb back into Leonardo’s car and drive north.

12

M
ollie knocked on Jeremiah’s door with a calm that surprised her. She had no intention of changing her mind. He opened up, tilted his head back, his eyes half-closed, his expression unreadable. She thought she saw a twitch of humor but couldn’t be sure. “Forget something?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I’ve been talking to the guys downstairs.”

“Ah, the council of wise old men.”

She smiled, noticing that he hadn’t moved from the doorway. “They observed your abrupt departure with interest.”

“They observe everything I do with interest. I suppose they had opinions on my motives?”

“Of course. They believe you’re being honorable or you’re scared—or a mixture of both—except for the one old guy who thinks you just need to be jerked up short.”

“That would be Albert, and I’m sure he was more colorful in his choice of words. He thinks I have a one-track mind about my work and need a two-by-four upside the head every now and then to get my attention.” He shrugged, the amusement reaching his eyes now. “Which could be true.”

“What about the honor and fear factor?”

“I try to do what I think is right. I don’t know if that’s being honorable. As for fear—” He smiled, leaning in close to her. “I’m not afraid of you, Mollie.”

She folded her arms on her chest in an effort to be cool, collected. “Does that mean I’m invited in?”

He stepped back from the door, motioning her inside with a mock bow and a sweep of his arm. Mollie eased past him. His apartment was silent and still, no television or CD playing, no reptiles stirring in their cages. As stripped down as Jeremiah’s tastes were, she felt comfortable. She remembered waltzing around the pink bedroom in Leonardo’s house, picking out her dress for the ball, caught up in the luxury and temptation of diamonds and rubies and beautiful clothes, all fun, but, somehow, not as real as standing in Jeremiah’s apartment with his books, CDs, videos, newspapers, magazines, simple furnishings, lizard, turtle, and snake.

“As much as I hate to admit it,” he said behind her, “I understand where Bennie, Albert, and Sal were coming from tonight. We’ve gotten to know each other, sitting out whittling, eating bagels in the morning, smoking an occasional cigar. They don’t know about you and our week together, but they know about me. The work I do, my commitment to it—and my determination not to inflict myself on a relationship that can’t last.”

Mollie turned to him, emotion and desire knotting her insides. A seriousness seemed to have enveloped him, darkening his eyes, bringing out the harsh angles of his face. But she didn’t regret her decision to walk back up to his apartment. “Jeremiah, right now I’m not worried about what can last and what can’t last. I’m not here about anything except tonight.”

“I don’t want to hurt you again.”

“That’s the risk we take, isn’t it?”

“Maybe it is.” He moved to her, toe to toe, and curved an arm around her waist, his mouth finding hers as he whispered, “I’m awfully glad I didn’t have to follow you up to Palm Beach tonight.”

“Would you have spied on me?”

“Darlin’, I’d have found some way inside your gates.”

He slipped his hands under her shirt and opened his palms against her warm, bare skin, sending waves of sensation through her as their mouths came together again, and she said between kisses, “I brought a change of clothes, just in case. They’re down in the car.”

His eyes flashed, sending more tremors through her with their blatant desire. “What about my plan for us to steer clear of each other?”

She drew her arms around him, felt the strong muscles of his back. “Did you think even for a half-second that would work?”

“It seemed like a good idea.” Again, the seriousness descended. “Mollie, if I’ve brought trouble down on your head—”

“It’s okay, Jeremiah.” She kissed him softly, easing herself against his chest. “I’m not twenty anymore.”

“No,” he said, smoothing his hands up her back, triggering memories that she thought she’d suppressed forever, “but I wouldn’t be surprised if you still sit on a musical note towel and listen to opera on the beach. Mollie, Mollie…I’ve never known anyone like you.”

She laughed, the rest of her quaking with a yearning that reached her soul. “I haven’t had a lot of Jeremiah Tabaks walking around in my life.”

“We don’t have to figure out our lives tonight.”

And he swept her into his arms and down the short hall to his bedroom, where the blinds were pulled against the dark night and the furnishings just as utilitarian as the rest of his apartment. It was as if ten years of pent-up desire suddenly was released. His mouth found hers again and again, her mind numbing with the sensation that he was drinking in all of her with their kisses.

“Don’t close your eyes,” he said, “stay with me now. I don’t want you to pretend this is a memory. See me as I am now, Mollie. Love me as I am now.”

“And you’ll do the same?”

“I am. I have been.”

And he kissed her, slowly this time, savoring, tasting, easing any last tension from her body. Soon, every muscle was warm, loose, vibrating with a desire that had been a part of her for so long, dormant, waiting for the day it would explode again.

“Jeremiah…” She breathed, focused for a moment on the stillness around them. “I didn’t think I’d ever let myself want you again.” She smiled, kissing him. “And it had nothing to do with honor.”