Maureen Child - The Highest Bidder

They stood outside Rothschild’s auction house in the late-afternoon sun. A police patrol car was parked at the curb and people passing on the sidewalk were slowing down to see what was happening.

“I’m sure,” she said, lifting her chin and stiffening her spine. “I want to see him arrested. I want to know that it’s over. Really.”

He understood that, though he would have kept her away if he could. Hell, just remembering the shocked, stunned expression on her face when he’d told her what he’d discovered had been enough to level him. But then he remembered how quickly she had shifted from shock to fury and his admiration for her soared.

No one would ever keep Charlie down. She had too much strength. Henry Boyle should have recognized that.

Vance came up out of his thoughts at the outraged shout.

“You can’t arrest me! You have no proof of anything!”

Still holding on to Charlie’s shoulders, Vance turned to watch as two police officers—one man, one woman—walked Henry Boyle out of Rothschild’s. The man was shouting and pulling at the officers, trying to get away, but with his hands cuffed in front of him, it wouldn’t be easy. A crowd was gathering on the sidewalk, but the traffic in the street was still a steady stream of movement and color.

Charlie stiffened against him when Henry’s wild gaze landed on her and he screamed in impotent rage.

“You stupid bitch! This is all your fault! All you had to do was give me the damn files!”

Vance’s fury was growing to match Boyle’s but he stood his ground and tugged Charlie half-behind him to protect her from the enraged man getting closer.

“Bitch! Stupid!”

“Come on now,” the male officer said as he reached down to open the squad car door. “Enough of that. Let’s go. You’ll get your say eventually.”

“Screw that!” Henry yanked free of the man’s grip, head-butted the female officer, and when she staggered backward, pulled free of her as well. With a last, frantic look at Charlie, Henry sprinted for freedom, pushing through the onlookers, rushing for the street.

He dodged a hybrid car and a yellow cab. Brakes squealed. People shouted. Horns blared. He was almost clear when he ran straight into the path of a city bus unable to stop in time.

Charlie choked out a cry as she turned her face into Vance’s chest. And as the street erupted into shocked screams, he held her there, sparing her from seeing what had become of Henry Boyle.

Three nights later, Vance found Charlie on the terrace in the moonlight. Even in his too-big T-shirt that she’d been wearing to sleep in, she looked like a pagan goddess, standing in front of a bank of flowers with the star-filled sky and moon above her.

That wonderful hair of hers hung loose to the middle of her back and the breeze sliding over the Plexiglas wall lifted long blond strands into a dance around her head.

Her gaze was locked on the river, with the city reflected on the water in brilliant, wavering slashes of light and color. She was so still, so quiet, so entranced at staring out at the view, she wasn’t even aware of him. So Vance had time to get control of the raging emotions rushing through him. Just minutes ago, he’d awakened, reached out for her in their bed and found her gone. For one heart-stopping second, fear had closed his throat before he’d realized that she’d probably gotten up to check on Jake. So he had, too. He’d found the baby sleeping peacefully, curled up into a ball—but Vance had had to search out the baby’s mother.

Finding her here, in the moonlit darkness, shifted something elemental inside him. It was bigger, deeper than anything he had ever known.

Was this love?

God, he hadn’t even mentally jerked back from that word. Which just went to prove how far gone he was. His whole life, he’d never seen love last. People in his family didn’t stay married. His parents had split up when he was just a kid. Even his friends fell in and out of “love” with regularity, so it was never something Vance had had any faith in.

It was a word he’d never used with a woman because he didn’t want to say what he didn’t—couldn’t—feel.

But now, with Charlie … All right, he was the first to admit that he didn’t know jack about love. But he did know that this woman and her child had carved a place for themselves in his heart. That was saying something, wasn’t it?

She turned her head to smile at him and his breath caught in his lungs. Her eyes shone and the curve of her mouth was irresistible to him. Everything about her was. And with that thought came the realization that he was in so deep now, he didn’t think he’d ever find his way out.

“What’re you doing out here?” He stepped through the sliding-glass door onto the tiled floor of the terrace.

“I woke up,” she said with a shrug. “I checked on Jake, then it was such a nice night, I came out here to do some thinking.”

“Always dangerous when a clever woman starts thinking,” he said, walking toward her. He came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her middle and let her lean back into him.

Since the end of the threat against her, Charlie had been … thoughtful. She was sad about Henry’s death, but relieved that her son was safe. But there was more she wasn’t saying, Vance knew. And that bothered him more than he wanted to admit.

She laid her hands on his arms and her head against his chest. And Vance felt … complete.

“Want to tell me what you’ve been thinking about?”

Her fingers stroked the skin of his arms with a gentle touch. “That it’s time Jake and I went home.”

He took a breath and held it. He wasn’t even sure his heart was still beating. “Home? Why?”

She turned in his arms then and looked up at him, shaking her hair back from her face. “Because we don’t belong here, Vance. You’ve been wonderful. Helped us when we needed it. Helped me . But this was never supposed to be permanent, right?”

No, no one had said anything about permanent. But they hadn’t put a time limit on it, either. Frowning, he swallowed hard and instead of answering her question, asked one of his own. “What’s the rush? You’ve been happy here. Jake and I get along great—”

“You do,” she said wistfully. “But I have to go back to my life, Vance.” She took a moment and looked around the terrace, the view and even the sky above. “As beautiful as all of this is, it isn’t my home.”

“It could be.”

“Vance—”

“I’m just saying.” Hell, he didn’t know what he was saying. All he knew was that her talking about leaving had blown a hole through his insides. Even his heartbeat was ragged. “Stay a while, at least. Let’s enjoy each other without the threat of doom hanging over our heads.”

She smiled sadly. “That won’t change anything.”

“Why does it have to?” He let her go, took a step or two away, then turned back to face her again. “Do we have to classify this—whatever it is—between us? Why can’t we just go on the way we have been?”

“Because it’s not just me, Vance.” She didn’t sound angry. Just sad. “I have to think about Jake, too.”

“I am thinking about Jake,” he argued and didn’t care for the sound of desperation in his voice. “He’s happy here. He likes his room. He likes me.”

“Too much,” she said and those two words jabbed at him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means he’s getting more aware every day. It means I heard him say ‘Dada’ this morning when you were feeding him his oatmeal.”

Yeah, Vance thought, remembering the little boy’s delight at mastering another word. Remembering also how happy he’d been when the boy reached out for him and said that word.