One Secret Night (18 page)

He parked out of sight and waited, Autumn quiet beside him.

They didn’t have to wait long. A car drove up and it wasn’t Ralston. A sleek Jaguar pulled into the driveway. A woman got out, one he recognized.

“Hey,” Autumn exclaimed in a whisper. “That’s Kai’s wife.”

“It sure is. You don’t have to whisper. She can’t hear us.”

She sent him a glare before turning back to India.

They watched her go to the door and ring the bell, glancing around. She saw their vehicle but must not have thought anything of it. The door opened and Ralston appeared, kissing her before letting her inside.

“I thought Ralston was married,” Autumn said, talking in a normal tone now.

“He is.”

“She must be out of town.” She stared at the closed door. “Ralston is having an affair with Kai’s wife. Oh, my God.”

“Yeah, how’s that for a surprise?” Raith started the engine and did a U-turn in the street. There was nothing they could do tonight. He wouldn’t give Ralston any clue that he knew about the affair.

“What do you think it means?” Autumn asked.

“If Kai knows his wife is sleeping with his nemesis, he might have set Ralston up out of revenge.” Kai loved his wife. Raith didn’t doubt that. He’d try to keep her.

“I bet she doesn’t know Ralston tried to kill her husband.”

Raith recalled how distraught India had been on the phone. She must be riddled with guilt. Is that what had brought her here?

Raith picked up his phone from the cup holder where he’d put it and called Paisley. He asked her if she knew Ralston was having an affair with Kai’s wife, and after she’d recovered from shock, told him no. He’d kept India a deep dark secret.

“Why would Kai go to all that trouble, though?” Autumn asked.

“I thought you didn’t believe an assassin would do a drive-by.”

“That is a little odd, but so is someone like Ralston hiring a highly sought-after assassin. Why not find a regular hit man? Someone who isn’t wanted by the FBI?”

“Maybe it was more of a favor and Leaman underestimated how hard it would be to kill him in a drive-by.”

“Now,
that
I believe. Ralston is acquainted with Garvin, whose best friend happens to be an assassin. Maybe Ralston paid Garvin, and Garvin lined Leaman up in return for a really nice rifle.”

Raith grinned over at her. “You’re pretty good at this.”

She smoothed the hem of her dress, drawing his attention to her knees. “Are you going to start introducing me as a P.I. now?”

“Agent isn’t working for you?” He looked at her breasts, a portion of cleavage showing.

“P.I. is more attainable.”

He chuckled as he pulled to a stop in front of the hotel. Tipping the valet driver, Raith walked to the passenger side of the car and put his arm around Autumn as they headed for the doors. It was an automatic movement, one that made Autumn stop walking.

They stood on the brick walkway in front of the entrance, cauterized by the warm contact of their bodies. Everything but where he felt her against him fell away. Slipping his other arm around her, he brought her to him fully and without much thought other than the way he felt right now, kissed her.

Her hands slid up his chest and she looped them over his shoulders, angling her head and welcoming a deeper caress. Raith could have kissed her for hours. The sound of a car driving up and people walking past brought him back to earth. He stopped kissing her but looked into her eyes, so drugged with sexual arousal that he considered taking her hand and rushing her up to the room and straight into the bedroom.

“Why does that feel so good?” she murmured.

“It could feel even better.” Why he’d said that he hadn’t a clue.

She answered with a sultry nod.

Swearing, growing as hard as a rock, he stepped back. She entwined her hand with his as they walked into the hotel. All the way up in the elevator, he stared at her, fighting the instinct and urgent drive to be inside of her.

At the suite door, she turned to him. Her arms went around him and she rose onto her toes to press a kiss to his mouth.

More swearing went through his head, but he put his hands on her rear and took over the kiss. She groaned, panting for breath.

Raith fumbled with the room key and managed to blindly unlock the door. He pushed it open and it swung, hitting the wall with a bang. Autumn laughed as they tripped over their feet and stumbled into the room.

After regaining his balance, he pulled her to him again. Over her head he saw his dad getting up from the sofa. He stopped kissing Autumn.

She groaned a protest and kept kissing him.

“Autumn.” He put his hands on her shoulders and set her back a step. While she pouted, he said, “We have company.”

She turned. “Oh.”

“I’ll go back into my room,” Leonardo said.

“No, no.” Autumn walked over to the seating area. “It’s all right. Stay.”

“No. I should go.” He looked at Raith with a grin. “Take good care of her.”

Raith couldn’t imagine a more awkward thing for his dad to say. The adjoining-room door shut and he and Autumn were alone.

Smoothing her hair, Autumn cautiously shifted her eyes to him.

“Um...” she murmured.

“I’ll call room service.” They hadn’t eaten yet.

“Good idea. I’m...um...I’m going to go change into something more comfortable.”

He didn’t respond, thinking of sexy lingerie and long, slender, naked thighs open for him.

Chapter 16

T
he next morning, Raith and Autumn waited for Leonardo to finish gathering his things. Raith had a car waiting in front of the hotel. Autumn hadn’t slept well last night. Room service had distracted them enough to prevent another reckless night in bed together, but she had ached for Raith for hours before falling into a restless sleep full of steamy dreams.

He didn’t seem bothered at all, not over her, anyway. He would say goodbye to his father and it might be the last time he saw him.

“Did Leonardo tell you about the experimental treatment he’s going to try?” she asked.

Judging by his look, she guessed not and explained what Leonardo had told her.

“Those treatments don’t work.”

“This particular one might. I read about it online. It has a pretty impressive survival rate, higher than any other that’s come along.”

“He has advanced colon cancer. Cancer, Autumn. When the doctors say you only have months to live, that’s not good news.”

He sounded so angry and she understood why. He fought against hope because if he hoped to have a father—a real father for the first time in too many years—he might end up losing him.

Leonardo appeared through the adjoining door. His grayish pallor and stiff movement revealed his exhaustion. He must not have been feeling well today.

“Are you sure you don’t need us to go with you to the airport?” Autumn asked.

“Yes. I’ll be fine. There will be plenty of help once I get there.” He left his carry-on luggage and looked at Raith, studying him as though committing him to memory.

“I hate goodbyes, so all I’m going to say is thank you for letting me back into your life,” his dad said.

Raith stepped forward and gave his dad a hug. “Good luck with your new treatment.”

Moving back from the embrace, Leonardo glanced at Autumn, realizing she’d told Raith. She wondered if he’d intended to tell him himself.

“I’ll call you,” Leonardo said.

“I’ll be in touch, too.”

Leonardo patted Raith’s arm. “Be happy, son.”

Raith took the handle of the luggage and rolled it to the door. Out in the hall, they went to the elevator.

“Oh,” Leonardo said. “I almost forgot to tell you. I watched an entertainment program this morning.” He leaned to look at Autumn around Raith’s big form. “I’ve taken to watching this channel ever since I discovered my son’s girlfriend is Jackson Ivy’s daughter.”

Oh, no. What had he seen on the program? He couldn’t guess what a sore subject this was.

“There was a brief blurb about the two of you. They had a picture. You were kissing outside this hotel.” Leonardo smiled, his sickly color slightly improving. “A real handsome couple you make. And that kiss looked like the real thing.”

“Someone took our picture?” Autumn asked.

Raith’s mouth pinched into a tight line and his eyes narrowed in reaction.

“Someone at the party you attended at the Ivy mansion spilled the beans about the baby. You’re a hot topic right now.” He leaned over again. “I won’t ask you how you got your reputation as a heartbreaker. That kiss and the baby stirred up a buzz. The two big questions were
will
this new mystery man last? Will the baby make you commit?
” Leonardo chuckled and then had to catch his breath. “They don’t know who you are,” he said to his son.

“Thank God for small miracles,” Raith said.

“You going to marry her and give that baby a name or not?” Leonardo braced his hand on the elevator wall and put his other hand to his stomach, taking a few deep breaths.

“I’m glad you made contact with me, Dad, but don’t push it.”

Had Raith noticed his father’s condition?

“Scared of the press?” Leonardo shook his head. “Didn’t think anything scared you.”

“This isn’t something I feel like discussing with you.”

“Fair enough.” The elevator doors opened and Leonardo was slow to push off the wall to follow them out.

Autumn waited for him and hooked her arm with his. “Are you all right?”

“I need to get home and rest.”

Raith stood in the opening to the lobby and watched them, becoming aware of how slow his father was moving.

They walked at Leonardo’s pace through the lobby. Outside, a dark sedan and driver waited. The driver opened the back door and Raith handed him the luggage.

“Are you sure you’re up for traveling today?” Raith asked.

“I have to be.”

“Your appointment can be rescheduled,” Autumn said, concerned for him.

He went to her and gave her a weak hug. “I’m so glad I had a chance to meet you.”

“The feeling is mutual.”

Leonardo faced his son. “You take care now. With any luck, I’ll live long enough to make your wedding and the baby’s birth.”

Autumn didn’t think he should travel. Maybe he needed a doctor.

“Call us and let us know how the treatment is going,” Raith said.

“Will do.” He turned to the car and took two steps before bending over, one hand going to his stomach and the other on the side of the car.

Raith moved toward him and put his arm around him just as Leonardo began to collapse.

Autumn dug into her purse for her phone and called 911.

“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” she heard the operator automatically answer.

“A man has collapsed in front of the Four Seasons Hotel. He has colon cancer.” Autumn watched as Raith laid Leonardo down onto the pavement.

Leonardo grasped his shirt and looked up at his son as though he believed he was dying.

“Is he conscious?” the operator asked.

“Yes.”

Just then Leonardo’s eyes slid shut. His body slumped in Raith’s arms and he went still.

“Oh, my God. Raith!”

Raith leaned down. “He’s breathing.”

“He’s breathing. But he just lost consciousness,” she told the operator, kneeling on the other side of Leonardo and looking at Raith’s grim face.

She searched for the lights of emergency vehicles. An endless few minutes passed before the sirens gave her some hope. Firefighters, along with two paramedics, gathered, and Raith answered all of their questions. Then Raith stood beside her and watched helplessly with her while they worked on Leonardo. When the paramedics loaded him into the ambulance, Raith and Autumn climbed in with him. One of the paramedics monitored Leonardo’s vitals while the other drove.

Autumn sat on a bench along one side and Raith sat beside her and next to the paramedic, who finished inserting an intravenous line. Then Leonardo’s body convulsed as though going into a seizure.

“We’re losing him,” the paramedic called to his partner, who was driving.

“What’s happening?” Autumn asked, taking Raith’s hand. His father couldn’t die like this after just reuniting with Raith.

“Ventricular fibrillation,” the paramedic answered, working with quick and experienced hands as he set up the defibrillator and attached the patches to the old man’s chest. Leonardo began gasping for breath every few seconds.

The paramedic shocked him. Autumn watched the heart monitor as it began to show signs of life again. The paramedic began to administer CPR and after a few minutes Leonardo’s heart began to beat on its own. Autumn leaned back with a breath of relief.

“Not breathing,” the paramedic said.

The ambulance stopped in front of the E.R. and his partner radioed the hospital, reporting the cardiac arrest and no breathing. Then he rushed to the back to help the other paramedic.

Autumn and Raith jumped out of the vehicle to allow them more room. She covered her mouth as they inserted a breathing tube into Leonardo’s throat and set the defibrillator up again.

Autumn’s heart climbed into her throat, her pulse quickening. She took Raith’s hand as emergency hospital staff joined the paramedics and removed Leonardo from the ambulance. He was wheeled inside, medical staff running alongside him.

Raith stood there a few moments and then tipped his head back with closed eyes. Autumn put her hand on his shoulder.

“Let’s wait for the doctor,” she said.

He turned his somber face to her, eyes heavy with worry and dread. “What if he dies?”

“He won’t. We have to believe he won’t.” Thinking positively couldn’t hurt.

“Come on.” She took his hand and urged him into the emergency room, going to a near-vacant waiting room.

She sat next to Raith, who stared at the closed double doors where Leonardo had been taken.

“Why did he have to come here?” Raith asked.

Autumn was appalled by that statement. “You’d rather he died without doing so?”

He straightened his head and she saw the ravaging emotion in his eyes.

“You’d rather not care,” she said. “Maybe that’s why you do what you do. You can be a loner and never care about anyone other than yourself. It’s easier that way, right? Not caring is so much easier.”

“Isn’t that what you do? Travel to faraway places so you don’t have to care about what the media is saying about you?”

“We’re talking about you right now. Your father might be dying in there and you wish you didn’t care.” If he cared enough about her and their baby, the media wouldn’t matter at all.

“That’s right. I wish I didn’t care. He was a horrible father. Why should I care now that he’s dying?”

“Is he a horrible father now?”

Raith turned away.

No, his father was not horrible anymore. “Alcohol is what was horrible. It was never him. It was his addiction. He overcame that addiction and reached out to you. So what if he waited too long. You should be grateful that you had one last chance to see that he isn’t the horrible man you grew up with.”

Standing, Raith walked over to the window and leaned on the sill, looking outside. Autumn left him alone.

His comment about the media didn’t ring as true as it normally did. That had her a little perplexed. She had no desire to take on a new translation assignment, and she had no desire to travel to a faraway place. Moreover, she didn’t feel trapped with Raith. She didn’t feel like everyone saw her as a celebrity, either. She wasn’t Jackson Ivy’s daughter with him. She was just Autumn Ivy, the translator who loved to travel. She had a feeling that the next time she traveled it wouldn’t be to escape the media. It would be for the adventure.

Why didn’t she feel trapped with Raith? With the boyfriend who’d lasted six months, she’d felt trapped. She’d liked him a lot, but she’d still felt trapped. In the end, that’s what had driven her to take a translation job. She’d escaped.

Looking back, she realized that she hadn’t felt as though she could be herself with him. She had liked many things about him, but he hadn’t liked her for herself. He’d been impressed over who her father was, but he hadn’t made her feel as if that was the only reason he was with her. It had mattered to him, though, and it had changed how she behaved with him. She was the bimbo again.

She was no bimbo with Raith. She was Autumn Ivy.

That insight didn’t go over so well with her. Her mood plummeted and added to her worry for Leonardo. As she turned to look at him staring out the window, tall, dark and brooding, she ached for him again, for his touch and the man who tugged at her in a deep, intimate way.

Maybe this time the heartbreaker would become the heartbroken.

“Let’s go get coffee.” Raith pushed off the window sill, jarring her.

She walked with him down a long, bright hall, following the signs to the cafeteria: a large, open room filled with beige-topped tables and wooden chairs with a food counter along the opposite wall. Beverages were situated along the adjacent wall on a smaller counter.

She and Raith went there.

Autumn poured some creamer into her cup while he poured his.

“This reminds me of when my mother died,” he said.

Looking up at the ceiling and all round the room, he carried his cup to the register at the end of the food counter. There weren’t many people in here. A solitary man sat at one table and a couple at another.

Autumn waited for Raith to continue. This was the most open he’d been about his mother.

“My dad took me to the cafeteria so he could get coffee.” He paid for both of their cups.

Autumn led him to a table by the windows, which ran the length of one side. She sat across from him and watched him stare out the window.

“My mother was sick in bed when I left for school that morning. I didn’t think anything of it. She had pneumonia. Death was the last thing on my mind.”

“You were fourteen,” she said.

He turned to her, his eyes a window into the past. “I didn’t think of her at all that day. I flirted with a girl in science class.”

She held back on commenting, sensing he needed to talk about this, also sensing he had never done so before now.

“I thought I had a chance with her. I thought about her all the way home. I was in a good mood. Happy. It was one of the rare days when nobody yelled or fought.” His eyes focused on her then. “She was too sick to fight him.”

“Raith...” Reaching for him, finding only the cold surface of the table beneath her palm, tears burned her eyes. Pregnancy hormones intensified the reaction. Autumn was not known for her weepiness. She rarely cried.

His eyes became unfocused again, lost in memory. “When I got home, she was still in bed. I went in there and noticed right away that something was wrong. My dad was on the couch watching a football game. He was drunk.” He paused, the traumatic emotion of that moment so strong Autumn could feel it herself. “My mother...” He lowered his head, a powerful man choked up over the death of his mother. A few seconds passed before he was able to lift his head, his eyes still clear. “My mother’s face was a grayish-white color...pasty...and more wrinkled than usual. She was dehydrated. I went to her and tried to talk to her. She opened her eyes and mumbled something.” Raith shook his head slowly and fractionally. “I’ve been haunted all my life wondering what she said.”

Autumn couldn’t stop the trail of first one then another tear down her face.

“I ran out to my dad and shouted for him to go help her. He yelled at me. He told me to go to my room. I flew at him then. I punched him and told him he’d better go help my mother. He hit me and I fell backward onto the ground. He was going to beat the hell out of me, so I ran away. I had to sneak into the kitchen to call 911.”