A muscle tightened in Rafe’s jaw. She was living in his apartment. Somehow he didn’t want to admit that. He didn’t want to admit anything. He wished to God he’d never started this conversation. In another few minutes his brothers would go from calling him nuts to figuring he needed to be committed.
“Okay,” Falco said, “I get it. You got involved on the rebound. Now you want out. You do, don’t you? Want out? I mean, that’s what this is all about?”
Rafe nodded. “Absolutely.”
“I don’t see the problem. Take the lady to dinner. You know, the it’s-been-great-but-it’s-over meal.”
“It isn’t like that. She wants out, too.”
Nick stared at him. “Well, then there isn’t any problem.”
“There is.” Rafe hesitated. “It’s… it’s complicated. I mean, we both want out. But—”
“But?”
“But, she’s, ah, she’s new to the city.”
“Buy her a guidebook,” Falco said coldly.
“And, ah, and I came on to her and that, ah, that kind of upset her.”
Falco and Nick grinned at each other. “So much for those smooth Orsini moves,” Nick said.
“Hey, I’m trying to be serious here. What I mean is… See, the lady in question is a little wary. Of men. Of sex. Of me.
And, uh, and now I’m wondering if I… if I—” He swallowed hard. “She won’t talk to me.”
This time nobody grinned. “She’s frigid?” Falco said, his eyebrows aiming for his hairline.
“No. Yes. I mean, maybe. I mean, it doesn’t matter because I have no intention of keeping her around very long.”
His brothers were looking at him strangely. He couldn’t blame them.
“Back to what Falco suggested,” Nick said. “Dinner. She won’t talk to you? No problem. Leave a message on her voice mail. Tell her to meet you somewhere for dinner. When she shows up, tell her things aren’t working. Give her a little gift, you know, not the little-blue-box-from-Tiffany’s kind of thing, but… What? Why are you shaking your head?”
“No phone. No voice mail.” Rafe cleared his throat. “She’s living in my apartment.”
The look of incredulity on his brothers’ faces said it all.
“She’s—”
“—living with you?”
“It’s temporary.”
“You sent the Valkyrie packing a couple of days ago and moved this Clara—”
“Chiara.”
“Clara, Chiara, whatever. You moved her in, what, five minutes later?”
Rafe gave one last thought to explaining, but how could he, when not even he could make sense out of everything he’d done? The only certainty was that he’d gotten himself into this mess and it was up to him to get himself out of it.
“Hey,” he said brightly, after a glance at his watch, “look at the time!”
“Rafe. Wait a minute—”
But he was already on his feet. “Great seeing you guys,” he said, and scrambled for the door.
Nick and Falco watched him go. Then they looked at each other.
“You got any idea what just happened?” Nick said.
Falco shook his head. “Not in the slightest.”
Nick nodded and signaled for another round of beer.
Rafe had taxied downtown.
His condo was on Fifth Avenue, in the midsixties. Any way you looked at it, it was a long walk home, but that was a good thing. Long walks usually helped clear his head.
Involving his brothers had not been a good idea. Not that he’d really involved them. He hadn’t told them much of anything, but what he had told them was not good.
Still, the confrontation, if you could call it that, had had one positive effect. It had made him face reality. He’d been dealing with this as if he were standing outside the problem, observing it. He wasn’t. What he was, he thought as he passed a group of suburban women in for some shopping and dressed more for a New Jersey mall than for the eclectic streets of Soho, what he was, was a man standing in a hole six feet deep, busy digging himself in deeper.
He’d married Chiara, yes, but given the same circumstances, he’d have done it again. What kind of man would turn his back on a desperate woman? And it wasn’t because of how she looked, those big violet eyes, that trembling mouth, or of how that mouth had felt under his, or of how she’d felt in his arms.
She’d needed help. He’d offered it. So, okay. The marrying part had been necessary.
What had been going on since then was not. The arguing. The accusations. What was the point? It was a done deal. And then, this morning… Proof of how crazy things had gotten. He couldn’t imagine why he’d tried to jump her bones.
To say she wasn’t his type was a laugh. She had a pretty face, yeah, but so did a million other women, and none of those million other women went around looking like little old ladies. None of them would ever look at him as if he were a mustachioed villain.
None of them was a wife he didn’t want. And none of them had hang-ups about sex.
Not that Chiara had seemed to have many of those this morning. That kiss. The way she’d clung to him. Moaned into his mouth. Arched her body against his, lifted herself to him…
Just what he needed. Turning himself on while he walked down a crowded street. Oh, yes, that was a great idea.
He swung toward a shop window, found himself staring at a display of hammers and power tools while he fought for control. That was another thing. When had he ever had to struggle for self-control? Never. Not since he’d left the Marines. Now he fought for it all the time. Either he was furious at his wife or so turned on that he couldn’t see straight for wanting her and—
“And she isn’t your wife,” he said sharply.
A couple coming out of the store gave him a wary look.
“Sorry,” Rafe said, “sorry. I was just—”
He was just losing his mind. The couple moved quickly past him. He took some deep breaths, began walking again.
It was time to move on. She wanted a divorce. So did he. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket as he reached the corner. The light turned red. Time to separate the tourists from the natives. The tourists stayed on the curb. The New Yorkers, Rafe among them, kept going. A car horn bleeped. A voice shouted something.
