If You Want Me (2 page)

“Hey, isn’t that…?”

“Oh, my God. Is that Desirée LaCroix?”

Alice heard the hushed whispers and buzz around her as she walked purposefully through the corridor. She saw the curious stares. Even with dark sunglasses on and her hair pulled back in a ponytail, people often recognized her in public.

Today, that public place was a crowded Chicago hospital.

Her brisk pace made it clear that she wasn’t here to sign T-shirts or notepads or anything else. Who in a hospital was? Like everyone else in these packed corridors, she was here to visit a patient.

Not just any patient. Her mother.

Alice’s pace faltered for a brief moment as the realization of the situation dawned on her again. She could hardly believe she was truly here, that her mother had actually had a heart attack. The last
time she’d talked to her mother, she’d told Alice never to come back to Chicago, and Alice had heeded her command. Until now. Now, the hard, cold woman Alice had considered indestructible could actually die. When her sister, Marie, had called to tell her the news, Alice had felt something she hadn’t felt in years—remorse and regret, and the overwhelming feeling that she needed to see her mother before it was too late.

If for no other reason than to finally look her in the eye and ask her why she didn’t love her.

“Psst. Look.”

Alice didn’t break her stride as she rounded the corner and headed for the elevators. Marie had told her the room number and wing where her mother was in Cook County Hospital. The woman at the information desk had pointed her in the right direction.

Her anxiety built as she rode up in the elevator, watching the numbers illuminate to indicate which floor they were on.

When the elevator doors finally parted, Alice was filled with a sudden sense of dread. What if her mother didn’t want to see her? What if she’d come all this way for nothing?

She turned right, glanced at the first few doors, saw the numbers were going up, not down, then pivoted on her heel and headed in the other direction. As she reached room 612, she slowed and inhaled a shaky breath, praying she could compose herself. Even after all this time and how far she’d come in her life, Alice was actually afraid to walk into the room and see her mother.

She opened the door and stepped inside.

Alice wasn’t prepared for the emotions that over
whelmed her as she looked inside the room and saw an empty bed.
Not yet,
she thought.
Oh, God, not yet.

She stepped further into the room, her head now aching from the urge to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come. There was a vase of yellow carnations on one side of the bed and two cards on the other. Lifting a card, she saw it was from her niece, Mia, to her mother. Yes, this was her mother’s room.

But her mother wasn’t here.

Oh, God. Was she too late?

At the sound of someone entering the room, Alice whirled around. Marie stood in the doorway, a Styrofoam cup in her hand, and a startled expression on her face.

“Marie.” Alice could hardly breathe. “Where’s Mom?”

“In surgery. You didn’t think—”

“I didn’t know what to think. Oh, Marie.” Alice practically flew toward her and wrapped her in an embrace. It was an instinctive move, but awkward nonetheless. She and Marie weren’t exactly close.

“Alice.”

Alice pulled back and looked at her sister for the first time in years. Her hair was drastically shorter than it had been the last time Alice had seen her, slicked back off her face and held in place with gel. It was no longer black but auburn. It suited her oval-shaped face. Marie had put on weight over the years, but it had all gone to her hips and waist, not her face.

One side of Marie’s lips lifted in a half smile but her expression was wary. There were dark circles
under her eyes, proof that she’d spent a sleepless night.

“Last night you told me that she didn’t want the surgery.”

“The doctors were finally able to talk some sense into her. I called you a couple hours ago to tell you she’d changed her mind, but you’d already left.”

“Triple bypass?” Alice asked.

“Yeah.” Marie’s voice was faint.

“So this is serious.”

“Pretty much so. There’s extensive blockage in her heart. Thank God Mia was with her at the time. If we’d all gone to bed…” Her voice trailed off and ended with a sniffle.

“Was she conscious before she went to surgery?” Alice asked.

“Yeah.”

“Did she ask for me?”

Marie shook her head.

Alice turned then and walked to the window. She stared outside but barely registered anything other than the bright sky. What had she expected? That her mother would have clutched Marie’s hand before surgery and begged her to call her? Scenes like that only played out in Hollywood movies, not real life.

Alice faced her sister. “Where’s Mia?”

“In school. I didn’t want her to miss the day.”

Silence fell over them, heavy and oppressive. There were so many things Alice wanted to say, so many things she was afraid to say. The truth was, her sister was a virtual stranger. She knew she’d married her high school sweetheart, Chad Greenley,
had one child, then divorced three years later. That was about it.

“I can’t believe how good you look,” Marie finally said, a hint of wonder in her voice. “I guess the cameras don’t lie.”

“Thanks,” Alice told her, a feeling of disappointment tickling her nape. But she should have known Marie would make some comment about her weight, even though she’d been slim and trim for over ten years now.

“I’m glad you’re home, Alice. I’m not sure I can deal with this by myself. The doctor said that Mama’s going to need to take it easy for at least six weeks. Virtual bed rest.”

“Six weeks?”

“While she recovers. With both of us taking care of her, we should manage just fine.”

“Both of us? I can’t stay for six weeks.” Maybe not even six days.

“You’re not working on a film, are you?”

“Not now.” Alice had walked off the set of her latest movie after a fiasco with the director. She’d asked him for time off to see her mother and he had used her mother’s illness as an excuse to proposition her for sex. A favor for a favor, he’d said. In fact, the whole scenario had left Alice with a bad taste in her mouth. For a long while, she hadn’t felt quite the same optimism she’d once felt about Hollywood. She’d struggled so hard to succeed, yet that success was often soured by the downside of the film industry. The kissing ass. The sucking up. The endless diets and low self-esteem. The backstabbing from people she’d considered friends. Knowing that her best often wasn’t good enough,
that even though she’d worked her butt off to earn respect, she was seen by some men as a toy to be used for their pleasure—however they wanted, whenever they wanted. Sebastian Charles’s tactless proposition had been the icing on the cake.

She needed a break from the Hollywood scene.

Still, returning to Chicago and taking care of the mother she had never been able to please wasn’t something Alice had considered. Something she didn’t want.

“Mama needs you, Alice.”

“I doubt that.”

“She’s still your mother.”

Alice bit her tongue, refusing to ask why their mother had never treated her as a daughter. Marie had never understood Alice’s unhappiness at home. How could she, when their mother had showered Marie, the beautiful one, with the love and attention she had denied Alice, the ugly duckling?

“Yes, she is. But this is so…sudden. I haven’t even told my agent that I’m away. And I’m waiting to hear back on a couple of roles I’m up for.”

“We know. You have a life; it’s not here.” Marie didn’t hide her bitterness.

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“Marie.” Alice’s voice was harsher than she intended. “I need to think, that’s all.”

“I can’t believe you’d run away again. At a time like this.”

“I’m here, aren’t I? Look,” Alice began, her voice softening. “I don’t want to argue with you, Marie.” That’s not why she was here. If Alice was in Los Angeles or Toronto or even France on a film set and her
mother died, she’d never be able to forgive herself. “Mom’s gonna be in surgery for a while, right?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“And after that she’ll be recuperating for a while.”

“Yes.”

Alice blew out a frustrated breath. She couldn’t believe she was actually considering this. “All right, I’ll stay as long as I can.”

“Thank you.” Marie sounded relieved.

“But if I’m gonna stay here and help take care of her, then I have to make some calls now. Take care of some business.” What she really needed was some time alone to collect her thoughts and accept the situation. She’d come home to see her mother, make sure she was all right, and if she wasn’t, be there for the rest of the family. She’d left Chicago thirteen years ago and had had no plans to return. Certainly not indefinitely.

“All right. I’ll stay here and wait for word.”

Alice nodded tightly. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

Then she walked out of the hospital room in search of a quiet spot to make some phone calls.

It was a bad idea, of course. Marcus just wasn’t the kind of man to pick up and bed strange women, especially not in this day and age. And even if he wanted to be that kind of man, he had no clue where to start. He’d dated only one woman seriously, had married her, and since their divorce two years ago he had thrown himself into work. Hell, he could hardly remember what women looked like naked, it had been that long.

The only time he’d come close to getting involved with anyone else was seven months ago, and that had ended in disaster. Even now, that situation was tough to swallow, so as Marcus accelerated his cruiser on the JFK Expressway, he pushed the thought from his mind.

Last night, Marcus’s former brother-in-law and a fellow cop, Khalil Barrett, had told him that he was too uptight and needed “help” unwinding. Marcus respected Khalil, so much so that he’d joined the force years ago at his suggestion, but he didn’t always agree with him. Especially when it came to women. Marcus knew he didn’t need
that
kind of help. If he needed to unwind, he’d spend more time at the gym. It was that simple.

He did miss sex, though. It was just the complications he could live without. For whatever reason, he always chose the wrong women. He was drawn to pretty faces, and that had gotten him into trouble. The first time he could live with. The second he wasn’t so sure.

The April day couldn’t have been more perfect, with a bright, cloudless sky and warm sun, but Marcus’s mood was far from perfect. Even the fresh air whipping against his face didn’t clear his mind as it usually did. There was no mystery as to why he was in a funky mood; though he’d officially been cleared of any wrongdoing in the Melissa Reynolds case, recently he couldn’t stop replaying that day seven months ago when everything had gone horribly wrong.

Forget it, Quinn,
he heard Khalil say.
What could you do?

It was that question that haunted him. Could he
have done something differently?
Would
he have done something differently if he hadn’t crossed the line and gotten involved with her?

Marcus frowned as he glanced in the rearview mirror. Immediately, he saw the royal blue BMW Roadster convertible approaching at breakneck speed. Damn, didn’t the idiot behind the wheel see his marked cruiser? Obviously not, because the car sped past him as though he were going backward.

He immediately hit his lights and gave chase. As he neared the car, he saw black hair flying with the breeze and realized that it was a female driver. That fact made him feel somewhat better; women tended to be more reasonable than men.

Most of the time.

This one he had to wonder about. Either she was hell-bent on not stopping, or she still hadn’t noticed him behind her. He blasted the siren once, then relaxed as the BMW began to decelerate. Seconds later, the driver pulled the car onto the left shoulder and came to a stop.

He should have called dispatch and run the tag, but his gut said the woman behind the wheel wasn’t dangerous. She just wasn’t particularly bright.

Still, as he made his way to the car, he did so cautiously, with his hand on his gun. Just in case. More than one Chicago area cop had been killed at a routine traffic stop.

“Place your hands where I can see them,” he said as he approached the car.

The woman’s hands immediately went into the air. A good sign.

He stopped at the passenger door, towering over
the occupant, whose hair was in disarray. “License and registration, please.”

She lifted her head to face him. “Officer, I…”

Even behind the sunglasses, he could see her eyes widen, her surprise mirroring his own. He would know her anywhere.
“Alice?”

“Marcus?”

“In the flesh.”

God, that voice. Alice took a deep breath. It was smooth and sexy, like velvet. She’d heard the phrase
rock your world
before, had listened to her female friends use it when describing men, but not until this moment in time did she actually understand its true meaning. But as a tremor passed through her body from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet, followed by what could only be described as a white-hot flash, she knew that her world had been more than rocked. It had been sent into orbit—which surprised the hell out of her. She’d gotten over her crush on Marcus Quinn ages ago.

“Oh, my God.” She pushed her sunglasses into her hair. “Marcus!”

A smile crept onto his face, which surprised him almost as much as seeing Alice out of the blue. He’d always thought that if he ever saw her again, he would feel anger, or at least annoyance. When she’d left Chicago in pursuit of fame, she’d forgotten all about him and their friendship.

He leaned forward and rested an arm on the window frame. “I can’t believe it’s you, Alice. Or should I call you Desirée LaCroix?”

Alice felt a stab of pain in her fingers and realized that she was gripping the steering wheel as if it were a lifeline. It was just that seeing Marcus here,
on the side of a highway, looking even more gorgeous than the last time she’d seen him, had unnerved her. She dropped her hands to her lap. “It’s Alice, Marcus. That’s my name.”