Nobody's Perfect (5 page)

"Left-hand pocket."

Like hell
. "Let me take Mari so you can open the car."

He ground out the words, "Reach in my pocket and get out the keys, Savan…Savi."

Still, Savi hesitated a moment longer, until he glared at her again. Did he have any other expression? Yes. He smiled and grinned when he looked at Mari. The glares he saved for Savi.

She looked down at the pocket. Leather pants. She supposed he'd worn leather because of his Harley, but wished he'd changed into jeans or something else when he'd gotten home. Not that she'd given him time to change before she'd shown up on his doorstep.

"Get. The keys. Out of. My pants. Now."

How was she ever supposed to get them out without touching him more intimately than she'd touched any man, well, since Damián, all those years ago? Savi's hands shook as she placed one at the opening of the pocket of his lethal-looking, hip-hugging pants and pried it open. She could barely wedge the fingers of her other hand inside. The warm leather felt good against her cold fingers. Heat spread up her arms and into her face. Okay, the heat in her face was from a separate, mysterious source. She did not blush and did not let a man affect her this way. Ever.

What was happening to her?

Not wanting to prolong the contact any longer, she dug into his pocket almost ferociously and found the key fob. Thank God. She yanked on it until the key got hung up.
Shit
.

"Use both hands." Damián just grinned. Damn him. The bastard was enjoying her obvious discomfort. Heat spread to the pit of her stomach. She decided she preferred his glare to his grin.

Using her other hand, she opened the pocket wider and then, with a slight tug, the keys popped out at last. She retreated several steps and took a few rapid, shallow breaths, trying to regain her equilibrium. Realizing she was just working herself up more, she remembered the Lamaze breathing techniques Anita had coached her on before Mari's birth, and tried to control her response with slow, even breaths.

Better.

She clicked the remote to unlock the car doors and opened the back door, watching Damián sit Mari in the back seat. He looked back at Savi. "I need you to buckle her in while I hold her up."

Why was he forcing so much close contact? She'd managed to buckle Mari in without another set of hands. Of course, Mari had been awake those times. With great reluctance, Savi moved forward, but when her lower body brushed against his, she came to an abrupt stop. She took several rapid breaths.

I can't do this
. Abruptly, Savi backed away and walked around the trunk of the car on shaky legs. Opening the other back door, she reached across the seat, ignoring the pain in her side and Damián's glare. She pulled the seatbelt from its pocket near the window and stretched it over Mari's blanketed shoulder and waist, fumbling around until she found the buckle. It clicked into place, and Savi breathed a deep sigh of relief. Mission accomplished; minimal damage.

She looked up as Damián began to pull himself away from her daughter and was horrified when Mari held him tighter. "Don't go, Daddy."

Savi's heart thudded. Mari couldn't know. Why would she call him such a thing?
Because she's always fantasized about having a real daddy
. Apparently, Damián filled the bill for her. More likely, in Mari's deep sleep, she must be dreaming.

Savi ventured a nervous glance at Damián and saw a stricken look on his face. He turned to meet Savi's gaze with a question—no, an accusation—she didn't want to deal with right now. The expression was replaced with a grim resolve.

He knows.

Of course, she'd planned to tell him. Soon. But this wasn't the time or place. She needed to divert his attention. Reaching down to her side, Savi winced. Damián's face showed concern as his focus returned to why they were out here in the first place. He gently unlocked Mari's hands from around his neck.
Good
.

"Don't worry,
querida
," he whispered to Mari. "Daddy's not going anywhere." He cast a sharp look at Savi, as if to make sure she knew he intended to keep his promise to his daughter.

Oh dear lord. Why was he reinforcing her daughter's fantasy?

Savi's heartbeat came to a halt for a second before slamming against her ribcage. She didn't need this complication. When he hadn't made the connection that he might be Mari's father at San Miguel's, she'd just assumed he never would figure it out. If Damián knew, would he try to take Mari away from her? Maybe telling him wasn't a good idea after all.

Unable to take his scrutiny any longer—his face showing a mixture of anger and pain that left her unsettled—she backed out of the car. By the time she reached for the driver's door, Damián's warm hand pulled hers away from the frozen handle. How had he come around the car so quickly?

He took her by the elbow, carefully but with a firm hand, and guided her to the passenger side. "I'm driving."

"But I drove all the way from the West Coast."

"Exactly. You don't need to be driving any further until we get those ribs looked at."

No one had taken care of Savi since she'd moved out of Anita's house after graduating from college. That was the year she'd landed her first job at a mental-health clinic in San Diego. Even when Anita had tried to help her find a position at the clinic where Anita worked, Savi had refused the job until it was time for Mari to start school. She'd wanted her daughter to go to school in Solano Beach, rather than San Diego.

Savi had chosen independence because she wanted to support herself and Mari and not be a burden anymore. She took pride in not needing anyone—most especially a man.

What alternative did she have, but to seek this man's assistance now? Damián held the passenger door open and waited for her to get inside. Her lungs constricted when she reached for the shoulder strap, but Damián blocked her hand and took the seatbelt, pulling it across her chest. His forearm brushed against her breast as he buckled her in like a child. She tried to press her back further into the seat cushion to avoid the intimate contact.

Damián closed her door and was soon behind the wheel. Silence ensued as he drove across town and Savi found herself consumed by memories of the decision that had started her on the long, twisted road that eventually had led her back to Damián.

Chapter Two

Lyle and her father would be at the hotel's party all evening. Finally, her first opportunity to escape since she'd arrived at the decision to run away two weeks ago.

She didn't have much time. The last thing she wanted was for them to find her walking along the road from Rancho Santa Fe to Solana Beach.

She'd managed to gather a few clothes and toiletries into a backpack, but wanted very few reminders of her life in the exclusive community. When she walked out of her Father's gate this time, it would be like walking through the Pearly Gates into Heaven. She crept into Father's office to retrieve the video of her last client session in her father's penthouse suite at his hotel—the scene from which the bus-boy, Damián Orlando, had rescued her. He'd already lost his job most likely, but she needed to prevent her father from blackmailing the young man. Damián didn't need to be threatened with jail time for doing the right thing. Father was powerful enough to trump up charges against him, though.

Her stomach clenched as she approached the desk where so many of her punishment sessions had been carried out in recent years.
Don't think about that right now. That's over. Never again.

After saving the video to a CD and placing it in her backpack, she deleted the file from the computer's desktop folder and even the internal folder, so there was no chance the file could be recovered. If her father had known that the computer specialist he'd hired to teach Savannah how to manage his second set of books actually had taught her more than how to create a spreadsheet, he'd be livid. Father was so sure Savannah would obey him always that he didn't even bother to put a password on his personal computer. She just hoped there weren't any other copies of the digital video around. He didn't have the penthouse wired to the hotel's surveillance cameras; only to his personal Web feed on this computer.

Somehow her father had managed to keep the sick-and-twisted part of his life separate from his hotel managers and staff, as far as Savi could tell. Until Damián happened upon her that day almost three months ago, when she was being tortured in the penthouse.

Picking up her backpack, she started toward the massive front door. The fanlight cast prisms of light across the foyer. As a little girl, she'd loved waiting for the rainbows to appear each evening.

No time to get fanciful today. She had four or five miles to walk to reach her sanctuary. At least it all would be downhill. Still, she'd packed lightly. Carrying anything heavier than a backpack would be a strain and would slow her down. She'd lost a lot of weight in recent weeks because of her queasiness, weight she couldn't afford to lose. Ever since that morning just over two weeks ago, when she'd realized she was pregnant and had made her decision to leave, the nausea had only grown worse, possibly in large part because she was worried she wouldn't be able to get away safely. She had to protect this baby from her father. Damián's baby. She'd try to find him, once she'd reached safety. Maybe he could help her keep the baby. Savannah knew she couldn't do it alone, but she'd already grown attached to the tiny being growing inside her, even in this short time. She'd never be able to give her child up for adoption…or worse. Savi shuddered as she closed the door behind her, wondering what her father would have done if he'd discovered her pregnancy.

The evening air was cool for Southern California, but her quivering was more because of the monumental step she was taking, than arising from the cold.

Escape.

If her father or Lyle caught her…she didn't want to think about how hard they would punish her.

"Oh, please, let this work." Maman would have prayed to God, but Savannah had stopped believing in God a long time ago. Yet, when she thought about where to run to, she'd remembered a place her mother had taken her to as a young child. A holy place. She hoped it also would be a safe place for her and her baby. That's what their priest had promised in that sermon all those years ago.

Savi walked down the flagstone steps, her legs feeling like wet noodles. The patch of rubber Damián's Harley had burned on the driveway in late September had not yet faded, despite Father's attempts to have Savannah scrub it off. She hadn't tried all that hard, but she smiled seeing it there, feeling as if Damián was here to give her a huge dose of much-needed courage. Her father had been livid about the mark he'd left in the driveway. Apparently Damián had been more than a little pissed off at her father after dropping her off that night.

She took a deep breath. Her chest ached as she remembered how painful it had been to hear him ride away that night. Later that September night, she hadn't been able to go through with her suicide plan, hoping Damián would come and rescue her. But he'd never returned. Would she ever be able to find him again?

As she made her way down the drive and onto the roadway, she noticed traffic was heavier than usual. With no sidewalks, so constantly stepped onto and off of the curb. She hoped no one recognized her who would report her to her father, but few of their neighbors even knew she existed. He'd kept her hidden for fear she might reveal his sick lifestyle. Now she needed to remain hidden, so she pulled her ball cap further down to shield her face as much as possible without causing a misstep.

She just couldn't chance leaving any later this evening, as much as she'd like to have had darkness on her side. Her father's party probably wouldn't last much longer. Most evenings, he was home by eight. Her punishment sessions for whatever grievances she had incurred during the day had always happened at night. Thank God he and Lyle hadn't done more than paddle or cane her lately.

Savi held her hand over her abdomen. If anything happened to the baby because she'd been too afraid to leave sooner…

Darkness had fallen by the time she reached the Hispanic area known as Eden Gardens. She'd been fighting cramps in her left calf for the last mile or so and looked forward to finding a place to sit or lie down. The working-class neighborhood glowed with luminaries in waxed bags along the walkways; strings of white twinkle lights adorned many of the houses and shrubbery. Christmas. She hadn't kept track of the days very well—one day was no different from another. So, it must be close to Christmas. Her own house hadn't been decorated for the holidays since Maman left. Savannah hadn't minded. She didn't want to remember those happier times.

Savi's chest ached at how much she missed her mother, even knowing the woman had abandoned her. Her father said she hadn't wanted the responsibility of raising a child any longer. Tears pricked the backs of her eyelids. Her hand touched her abdomen. How could a mother abandon her child?

A few more blocks and the lights of the church beckoned her forward. She had nowhere else to go. Would the doors be unlocked this late at night? Would a dirty slut like her be permitted to come inside and seek refuge until she could get a job and support herself? As she neared the steps, she remembered holding her mother's hand as they had walked up these steps together that Christmas Eve when she was seven.

"Oh, Maman, why did you leave me with him?"

No. He's out of my life now. I don't need to think about him ever again.

Opening the tall, heavy, oak door, she stepped inside the vestibule. Poinsettias had been placed on mission-style tables at either end of the entryway. She stepped further inside, blessing herself with holy water, as Maman had taught her to do before stepping into a Catholic church. It had seemed so much bigger when she was here the last time. Perspective. She'd changed in many ways, the least of which was her increased height.