The Winning Hand (25 page)
Authors: Nora Roberts
Her heart toppled and cracked. “Because I slept with you? Please.”
However derisive her words, her fingers had linked together and twisted. It was just enough of a tell for him to call her bluff. “You wouldn’t have slept with me if you hadn’t been in love with me. If I held you right now, if I put my mouth on yours, you’d tell me without saying a word.”
Every defense crumbled. “You knew, and you used it.”
“Maybe I did. I’ve had a hard time with that, and made more mistakes because I couldn’t get past it.”
“Are you guilty or angry, Mac?” Wearily she turned away again. “You broke my heart. I’d have given it to you on a platter. It wasn’t even enough for you not to want it, you ignored it.”
“I told myself I was doing it for you.”
“For me.” A laugh choked out. “Well, that was considerate of you.”
“Darcy.” He reached out, but her shoulders rounded as she cringed away. An ache sliced through him as he dropped his hands again. “I won’t touch you, but at least look at me.”
“What do you want from me? Do you want me to say it’s all right? That I understand? I won’t hold it against you? It’s not all right.” Her breath hitched in a sob that was brutal to control. “I don’t understand, and I’m trying not to hold it against you. You weren’t obligated to feel what I felt—that was
my gamble. But in the end you could have been kind.”
“If I’d trusted my feelings, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. And I don’t want to have it here.” When a hunch came this sudden and strong, he knew to ride it out. “I want to see your house.”
“What?”
“I’d like very much to see your house. Now.”
“Now?” She passed a hand over her eyes. “It’s late. I’m tired. I don’t have the keys.”
“What’s the name of the Realtor? Do you have a card?”
“Yes, on the desk. But—”
“Good.”
To her confusion he walked to the phone, dialed the number and in less than two minutes was on a first-name basis with Marion Baines and jotting down her address.
“She’ll give us the keys,” Mac told Darcy when he hung up. “Shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes to get to her place.”
“You’re a powerful man,” she said dryly. “What’s the point of this?”
“Take a chance.” He smiled in challenge. “Leap before you look. Do you want a jacket?”
She refused one, and would have refused to go with him if she hadn’t wanted one scrap of pride to take with her. They didn’t speak. She thought that was best. Perhaps, somehow, this quiet drive would settle the nerves and let them part—if not as friends—with some respect for each other.
He seemed to know his way. He picked up the keys without incident, then easily wove toward the outskirts where her house stood, a soft silhouette under the slowly waning moon.
“Trust you,” he murmured, scanning the shape. “You found a castle after all.”
It nearly made her smile. “That’s what I thought when I saw it. That’s how I knew it was mine.”
“Ask me in.”
“You’ve got the keys,” she noted, and opened her door.
He waited until she’d rounded the hood, then held the keys out to her. “Ask me in, Darcy.”
She fought the urge to snatch the keys from him, telling herself he was trying to do what he could to make the situation less miserable. She accepted the keys and started up the walk.
“I’ve never been in it at night. There are floodlights in both the house and yard.”
He thought about her out there, alone, at night. “Is there a security system?”
“Yes, I have the code.” She unlocked the door and turned directly to a small box beside it. She disengaged the alarm, then switched on the lights.
He said nothing, but walked through much as his mother had done. But in this case, the silence unnerved her. “I’ve been looking at furniture, found many pieces that I like.”
“It’s a lot of space.”
“I’ve discovered I like a lot of space.”
She’d put plants on the decks, he imagined. Cheerful pots full of lush green and delicate blossoms she’d baby. She’d want soft colors inside, cool and soothing, with the occasional flash to shake things up.
It amazed him how clearly he could imagine it, and how easy it was to know her after so little time.
He switched on the outside lights and watched them flood the blue water of the pool and the rippling sea of the desert beyond.
It was stunning, powerful, and in its own way calm as the night sky. Maybe he’d lost sight of this, he mused, this other side of the world from where he’d chosen to live. And because of that, had refused to accept her place there.
“This is what you want.”
“Yes. This is what I want.”
“The tower. You’ll write there.”
She ached a little, because he would know. “Yes.”
“We never celebrated.” He turned back. She was standing in the center of the empty room, her hands linked, her eyes shadowed. “My fault. I need you to know, Darcy, how happy I am for you, and
how sorry I am I spoiled the moment.”
Guilt, she thought. He was too kind a man not to feel it. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters,” he corrected. “A great deal. I’d like to try to explain. I’d like you to try to see it from my viewpoint. You fell into my arms, literally, the first time I saw you. You were alone, lonely, a little desperate, completely vulnerable and impossibly appealing. I wanted you too much, too quickly. I’m good at resisting temptation, that’s why I’m good at what I do. But I couldn’t resist you.”
“You didn’t seduce me, you didn’t force me. It was a mutual attraction.”
“But it wasn’t an even hand.” He stepped toward her, relieved when she didn’t back away. “I took you because I wanted you, because I could, because I needed to, knowing you’d want and need more. Deserved more. But I didn’t intend to give it to you.”
“It was a chance I took. You told me flat out, before we were lovers, you didn’t have marriage on your mind. I didn’t fall in bed with you blindly.”
He paused a moment, surprised. “You gambled on me changing my mind?”
“The odds might have been long that you’d fall in love with me, but they weren’t infinitesimal.” The edge had come back into her voice. “Your grandfather thinks I’m perfect for you. So does your mother.”
He very nearly choked. “You talked to my mother?”
“I love your mother,” she said passionately. “And I have a perfect right to have someone to talk to.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. I’m getting off the track,” he said with a sigh. “The way I saw it, you needed a little time to settle, to explore the possibilities, to have some fun and indulge yourself. So you’d gamble a little, spend some money, take a few rides. Discover sex.”
“So you were what, tutoring me? How much more insulting can you possibly be?”
“I’m not trying to insult you. I’m trying to tell you what I believed, and that I was wrong.”
“You haven’t begun to say you were wrong yet. Maybe you should get started.”
“You’ve got a nasty streak.” He dipped his hands into his pockets. “I never noticed it before.”
“I’ve been saving it up. So the little country mouse comes to the big city and the clever city mouse lets her taste a bit of sin, then shows her the door before she damns her soul to perdition? Is that close enough?”
“A long, wide nasty streak. You were alone and afraid and over your head.”
“And you tossed me a float.”
“Shut up.” Patience straining, he gripped her arms. “Nobody ever gave you a choice. You said so yourself. No one gave you a chance. No one let you bloom. God, Darcy, you’ve done nothing but bloom since you got here, since you had that chance, that choice. How was I supposed to take that choice away from you? You’ve never been anywhere else. You’ve never been with anyone else. I wasn’t going to watch you living in a hotel, wandering through a casino, locking yourself to me because you didn’t know any better.”
“And that’s your way of giving me a choice. Funny, that’s just the kind of choice people have been giving me all my life.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“So am I.” She lifted her hands to his arms and pushed until he released her. “Are we finished?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Oh, what’s the point of this?” She strode away from him, her sassy shoes clicking on the tiles. “Why do you want a tour of the place now? Do we pretend we’re pals? What are we doing here?”
“I wanted to finish this here because it’s not my place. It’s yours.” He waited until she turned back. “The house always has the advantage.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“My father told me something tonight I’d never considered. He said wanting is easy, but loving is terrifying.” His eyes stayed locked on hers. “You terrify me, Darcy, right down to the bone.” He watched as she wrapped her arms tight around her body. “When I look at you, I’m scared senseless.”
“Don’t do this. It’s not fair.”
“I tried to be fair, and all I did was hurt you, and make myself miserable. I’m playing a new hand now, and when the house has the edge, I can’t afford to play fair. There’s no point in backing away,” he said when she did just that. “I’ll only keep coming after you. You brought this on yourself. I’d have let you go.”
He caught her, ran his hands from her shoulders to her wrists then back again. “You’re trembling. Scared?” He touched his lips to the corner of hers. “That must mean you still love me.”
Her breath was hot in her chest, tangling in her throat. “I won’t have you feeling sorry for me. I don’t—”
The kiss was sudden and violent. Her heart slammed once, twice, hard against her ribs then began a wild and unsteady beat.
“Is that what you think this is? This feels like pity to you?” He took her mouth again, diving deep. “Damn, this dress drives me crazy. I could have killed every man at that table tonight just for looking at you. I’ll have to buy you a dozen more like it.”
“You’re not making sense. I don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I love you.”
This time her heart took one high, joyful leap. “You do?”
“I love everything about you.” He lifted her hands, pressed them to his lips, then gently untangled her fingers. “And I’m asking you to buck the odds and give me another chance.”
Her lips trembled, then curved. “I’m a big believer in another chance.”
“I was counting on it.” This time he kissed her gently, easing her into his arms. “But you’re going to have to let me move in here.”
“Here?” She was floating, drifting, close to dreaming. “You want to live here?”
“Well, I figure this is where you’ll want to raise the kids.”
“Kids?” Her dazzled eyes flew open again.
“You want kids, don’t you?” He smiled when her head bobbed up and down. “I like big families—and
coming from one, I’m a traditionalist. If we’re going to make kids together, you have to marry me.”
“Mac.” It was all she could say, just his name. Nothing else would get through.
“Willing to risk it, Darcy?” He lifted her hands again, pressed them to his heart. “Want to take a gamble on us?”
His heart beat under her hands, and was no steadier than hers. “It so happens,” she said with a brilliant smile, “I’m on a hot streak.”
He laughed, scooped her off her feet in one wide, dizzying circle. “So I’ve heard.”
If you liked
The Winning Hand
, look for the other novels in the MacGregors series:
Playing the Odds
,
Tempting Fate
,
All the Possibilities
,
One Man’s Art
,
The MacGregor Brides
,
The MacGregor
Grooms
,
The Perfect Neighbor
, and
Rebellion & In from the Cold
, available as eBooks from InterMix.
Keep reading for a special excerpt from the newest novel by Nora Roberts
THE WITNESS
Available April 2012 in hardcover from G.P. Putnam’s Sons
June 2000
Elizabeth Fitch’s short-lived teenage rebellion began with L’Oreal Pure Black, a pair of scissors and a fake ID. It ended in blood.
For nearly the whole of her sixteen years, eight months and twenty-one days she’d dutifully followed her mother’s directives. Dr. Susan L. Fitch issued
directives
, not orders. Elizabeth had adhered to the schedules her mother created, ate the meals designed by her mother’s nutritionist and prepared by her mother’s cook, wore the clothes selected by her mother’s personal shopper.
Dr. Susan L. Fitch dressed conservatively, as suited—in her opinion—her position as Chief of Surgery at Chicago’s Silva Memorial Hospital. She expected, and directed, her daughter to do the same.
Elizabeth studied diligently, accepting and excelling in the academic programs her mother outlined. In the fall, she’d return to Harvard in pursuit of her medical degree. So she could become a doctor, like her mother; a surgeon, like her mother.
Elizabeth—never Liz or Lizzie or Beth—spoke fluent Spanish, French, Italian, passable Russian and rudimentary Japanese. She played both piano and violin. She’d traveled to Europe, to Africa. She could name all the bones, nerves and muscles in the human body and play Chopin’s Piano Concerto—both One and Two—by rote.
She’d never been on a date or kissed a boy. She’d never roamed the mall with a pack of girls, attended a slumber party or giggled with friends over pizza or hot fudge sundaes.
She was, at sixteen years, eight months and twenty-one days, a product of her mother’s meticulous and detailed agenda.
That was about to change.
She watched her mother pack. Susan, her rich brown hair already coiled in her signature French twist, neatly hung another suit in the organized garment bag, then checked off the printout with each day of the week’s medical conference broken into subgroups. The printout included a spreadsheet listing every event, appointment, meeting and meal scheduled with the selected outfit, shoes, bag and accessories.
Designer suits and Italian shoes, of course, Elizabeth thought. One must wear good cut, good cloth. But not one rich or bright color among the blacks, grays, taupes. She wondered how her mother could be so beautiful and deliberately wear the dull.
After two accelerated semesters of college, Elizabeth thought she’d begun—maybe—to develop her own fashion sense. She had, in fact, bought jeans
and
a hoodie
and
some chunky heeled boots in Cambridge.
She’d paid in cash, so the purchase wouldn’t show up on her credit card bill in case her mother or their accountant checked and questioned the items, which were currently hidden in her room.
She’d felt like a different person wearing them, so different that she’d walked straight into a McDonald’s and ordered her first Big Mac with large fries and a chocolate shake.
The pleasure had been so huge she’d had to go into the bathroom, close herself in a stall and cry a little.
The seeds of the rebellion had been planted that day, she supposed, or maybe they’d always been there, dormant, and the fat and salt had awakened them.
But she could feel them, actually feel them sprouting in her belly now.
“Your plans changed, Mother. It doesn’t follow that mine have to change with them.”
Susan took a moment to precisely place a shoe bag in the pullman, tucking it just so with her beautiful and clever surgeon’s hands, the nails perfectly manicured. A French manicure, as always—no color there either.
“Elizabeth.” Her voice was as polished and calm as her wardrobe. “It took considerable effort to reschedule and have you admitted to the summer program this term. You’ll complete the requirements for your admission into Harvard Medical School a full semester ahead of schedule.”
Even the thought made Elizabeth’s stomach hurt. “I was promised a three-week break, including this next week in New York.”
“And sometimes promises must be broken. If I hadn’t had this coming week off, I couldn’t fill in for Dr. Dusecki at the conference.”
“You could have said no.”
“That would have been selfish and shortsighted.” Susan brushed at the jacket she’d hung, stepped back to check her list. “You’re certainly mature enough to understand the demands of work overtake pleasure and leisure.”
“If I’m mature enough to understand that, why aren’t I mature enough to make my own decisions? I want this break. I need it.”
Susan barely spared her daughter a glance. “A girl of your age, physical condition and mental acumen hardly
needs
a break from her studies and activities. In addition, Mrs. Laine has already left for her two-week cruise, and I could hardly ask her to postpone her vacation. There’s no one to fix your meals or tend to the house.”
“I can fix my own meals and tend to the house.”
“Elizabeth.” The tone managed to merge clipped with long-suffering. “It’s settled.”
“And I have no say in it? What about developing my independence, being responsible?”
“Independence comes in degrees, as does responsibility and freedom of choice. You still require guidance and direction. Now, I’ve e-mailed you an updated schedule for the coming week, and your packet with all the information on the program is on your desk. Be sure to thank Dr. Frisco personally for making room for you in the summer term.”
As she spoke, Susan closed the garment bag, then her small pullman. She stepped to her bureau to
check her hair, her lipstick.
“You don’t listen to anything I say.”
In the mirror, Susan’s gaze shifted to her daughter. The first time, Elizabeth thought, her mother had bothered to actually look at her since she’d come into the bedroom. “Of course I do. I heard everything you said, very clearly.”
“Listening’s different than hearing.”
“That may be true, Elizabeth, but we’ve already had this discussion.”
“It’s not a discussion, it’s a decree.”
Susan’s mouth tightened briefly, the only sign of annoyance. When she turned, her eyes were a cool, calm blue. “I’m sorry you feel that way. As your mother, I must do what I believe is best for you.”
“What’s best for me, in your opinion, is for me to do, be, say, think, act, want, become exactly what you decided for me before you inseminated yourself with precisely selected sperm.”
She heard the rise of her own voice but couldn’t control it, felt the hot sting of tears in her eyes but couldn’t stop them. “I’m tired of being your experiment. I’m tired of having every minute of every day organized, orchestrated and choreographed to meet your expectations. I want to make my own choices, buy my own clothes, read books
I
want to read. I want to live my own life instead of yours.”
Susan’s eyebrows lifted in an expression of mild interest. “Well. Your attitude isn’t surprising given your age, but you’ve picked a very inconvenient time to be defiant and argumentative.”
“Sorry. It wasn’t on the schedule.”
“Sarcasm’s also typical, but it’s unbecoming.” Susan opened her briefcase, checked the contents. “We’ll talk about all this when I get back. I’ll make an appointment with Dr. Bristoe.”
“I don’t need therapy! I need a mother who
listens
, who gives a shit about how I feel.”
“That kind of language only shows a lack of maturity and intellect.”
Enraged, Elizabeth threw up her hands, spun in circles. If she couldn’t be calm and rational like her mother, she’d be
wild
. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”
“And repetition hardly enhances. You have the rest of the weekend to consider your behavior. Your meals are in the refrigerator or freezer, labeled. Your pack list is on your desk. Report to Ms. Vee at the university at eight on Monday morning. Your participation in this program will ensure your place in HMS next fall. Now, take my garment bag downstairs, please. My car will be here any minute.”
Oh, those seeds were sprouting, cracking that fallow ground and pushing painfully through. For the first time in her life, Elizabeth looked straight into her mother’s eyes and said, “No.”
She spun around, stomped away, and slammed the door of her bedroom. She threw herself down on the bed, stared at the ceiling with tear-blurred eyes. And waited.
Any second, any second, she told herself. Her mother would come in, demand an apology, demand obedience. And she wouldn’t give either.
They’d have a fight, an actual fight, with threats of punishment and consequences. Maybe they’d yell at each other. Maybe if they yelled, her mother would finally hear her.
And maybe, if they yelled, she could say all the things that had crept up inside her this past year. Things she thought now had been inside her forever.
She didn’t want to be a doctor. She didn’t want to spend every waking hour on a schedule or have to hide a stupid pair of jeans because they didn’t fit her mother’s dress code.
She wanted to have friends, not approved socialization appointments. She wanted to listen to the music girls her age listened to. She wanted to know what they whispered about and laughed about and talked about while she was shut out.
She didn’t want to be a genius or a prodigy.
She wanted to be normal. She just wanted to be like everyone else.
She swiped at the tears, curled up, stared at the door.
Any second, she thought again. Any second now. Her mother had to be angry. She had to come in and assert authority. Had to.
“Please,” Elizabeth murmured as seconds ticked into minutes. “Don’t make me give in again.
Please, please, don’t make me give up.”
Love me enough. Just this once.
But as the minutes dragged on, Elizabeth pushed herself off the bed. Patience, she knew, was her mother’s greatest weapon. That, and the unyielding sense of being right crushed all foes. And certainly her daughter was no match for it.
Defeated, she walked out of her room, toward her mother’s.
The garment bag, the briefcase, the small, wheeled pullman were gone. Even as she walked downstairs, she knew her mother had gone, too.
“She left me. She just left.”
Alone, she looked around the pretty, tidy living room. Everything perfect—the fabrics, the colors, the art, the arrangement. The antiques passed down through generations of Fitches—all quiet elegance.
Empty.
Nothing had changed, she realized. And nothing would.
“So I will.”
She didn’t allow herself to think, to question or second-guess. Instead, she marched back up, snagged scissors from her study area.
In her bathroom she studied her face in the mirror—coloring she’d gotten through paternity—auburn hair, thick like her mother’s but without the soft, pretty wave. Her mother’s high, sharp cheekbones, her biological father’s—whoever he was—deep-set green eyes. Pale skin, wide mouth.
Physically attractive, she thought, because that was DNA and her mother would tolerate no less. But not beautiful, not striking like Susan, no. And that, she supposed, had been a disappointment even her mother couldn’t fix.
“Freak.” Elizabeth pressed a hand to the mirror, hating what she saw in the glass. “You’re a freak. But as of now, you’re not a coward.”
Taking a big breath, she yanked up a hunk of her shoulder length hair and chopped it off.
With every snap of the scissors she felt empowered.
Her
hair,
her
choice. She let the shorn hanks fall to the floor. As she snipped and hacked, an image formed in her mind. Eyes narrowed, head angled, she slowed the clipping. It was just geometry, really, she decided—and physics. Action and reaction.
The weight—physical and metaphorical, she thought—just fell away. And the girl in the glass looked lighter. Her eyes seemed bigger, her face not so thin, not so drawn.
She looked … new, Elizabeth decided.
Carefully, she set the scissors down, and realizing her breath was heaving in and out, made a conscious effort to slow it.
So short. Testing, she lifted a hand to her exposed neck, ears, then brushed them over the bangs she’d cut. Too even, she decided. She hunted up manicure scissors, tried her hand at styling.
Not bad. Not really good, she admitted, but different. That was the whole point. She looked and felt different.
But not finished.
Leaving the hair where it lay, she went into her bedroom, changed into her secret cache of clothes. She needed product—that’s what the girls called it. Hair product. And makeup. And more clothes.
She needed the mall.
Riding on the thrill, she went into her mother’s home office, took the spare car keys. And her heart hammered with excitement as she hurried to the garage. She got behind the wheel, shut her eyes a moment.
“Here we go,” she said quietly, then hit the garage door opener and backed out.
She got her ears pierced. It seemed a bold if mildly painful move, and suited the hair dye she’d taken from the shelf after a long, careful study and debate. She bought hair wax, as she’d seen one of the girls at college use it and thought she could duplicate the look. More or less.
She bought two hundred dollars’ worth of makeup because she wasn’t sure what was right.
Then she had to sit down because her knees shook. But she wasn’t done, Elizabeth reminded herself as she watched the packs of teenagers, groups of women, teams of families wander by. She just needed to regroup.