The rock on the floor seems to goad me, but I am not touching it. Not because I know that the police will want to check it for fingerprints, but because of the vaguely superstitious feeling that if I do, something horrible will be transferred from it to me. As if it is some sort of contaminant that has managed to enter my world, and the best thing I can do is run from it.
That’s not what I need to do, of course. What I need to do is fight.
But how the hell do you fight what you can’t see?
As if in answer, Damien eases my clenched fist open and twines his fingers with mine. I hold tight, letting his touch calm me. Sticks, stones, gossip—I will weather it all if he is at my side.
Right now, he is on the phone with the head of his security team. The police have already been called, but there’s no way that Damien will leave this to them. He finishes the call, hangs up, and turns that laser-like focus on me.
He lifts our joined hands. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I say, then repeat the word for emphasis. “Yes, I’m fine. Now, I’m fine.”
His eyes search mine, as if he’s looking for the message under my words. For a moment, I don’t understand what it is that’s bothering him. Then I realize I am standing in a spread of shattered glass. I close my eyes. I’d been too focused on the rock earlier. And then Damien had taken my hand. But if he hadn’t, I know I would have felt that familiar compulsion, and those shards would have been nothing more than glittering temptation.
“I’m fine,” I repeat firmly, and squeeze his fingers. “I have you.”
“You do,” he says, and though his eyes are soft, his tone is businesslike. “I’ll give you the choice of Malibu or downtown, but until we catch whoever is doing this, you are staying with me. And that is not a subject that is open to debate any longer.”
Since I’m not an idiot, I nod agreement. I meant what I said earlier, but this has crossed the line into actual danger. And I’m not risking my safety on a point of honor.
“I’d rather stay in Malibu,” I admit. “But there’s no furniture.” The house was barely finished before we left for Germany, and I assume the pieces he’d rented for the party honoring Blaine and the reveal of my portrait have already been returned to whatever warehouse they came from.
He nods toward the bed. “I’ll have it brought back,” he says. “And I’ll have Sylvia arrange to rent enough furniture to make the rest of the house livable.” He pulls me close for a soft kiss. “We can decorate slowly, and as we find pieces we like, we’ll kick the rented pieces out on their asses.”
I roll my eyes, but I can’t help but smile. I had almost come undone when Damien had told me that he wanted us to furnish the Malibu house together. I don’t want to lose that because some asshole is throwing rocks at me. Damien, of course, understands that without me having to tell him.
“What about Jamie?” he asks. “Is she staying with us, or are we getting her a hotel?”
I slide into his arms, suddenly overwhelmed and grateful and so full of love for this man I’m not sure that I can stand on my own. “Thank you,” I whisper. “Knowing Jamie, she’d love to stay at the Malibu house.”
“I’ll have Sylvia get a key and the security code to her in Arrowhead, and send someone over here to pack some of Jamie’s things. She can go straight to Malibu when she returns.”
“Thank you,” I say again.
“What else do you need?”
I move out of his arms and go sit on my sofa. “Can you arrange to just have all this be over?”
“I wish I could,” he says, dropping down beside me.
The truth is, I am scared. But I don’t want to show it. I know Damien will feel responsible. He’s not, of course. That honor belongs to whatever psychopathic bitch—because I am just certain it’s a woman—has decided to paint a bull’s-eye on my size eight ass.
“Maybe it’s Carmela,” I say.
“Not her style,” Damien says, then adds, “but I have my people looking anyway.”
“You’ve been keeping me out of the loop.” I’m not accusing, simply stating a fact. And to be honest, I haven’t really wanted to think about it. But I no longer have the cushion of the Atlantic Ocean and all of Western Europe and the entire staff at the Kempinski to separate me from reality. Now, I know that whoever is harassing me is here to stay, and if I don’t focus on it—if I don’t wonder and think and watch my own back—then I’m no better than those idiot girls in movies who go up the stairs in scary houses, even though they know damn well the killer is waiting for them.
This is reality, I think. And whether I like it or not, it’s forcing its way into our lives.
“I didn’t see the point of burying you in this crap if we didn’t know anything.”
I cock my head. “You’re protecting me again.”
“I am,” he says. “And as I believe I already explained in rather intimate detail, I don’t intend to stop. Do you have a problem with that, Ms. Fairchild?”
“Only if you’re keeping me out of the loop to do it,” I say. “So what haven’t you told me?”
“Not much,” he says, and I can hear the frustration in his voice that stems from that simple fact.
“Start with the painting. Have you learned anything about who leaked the story that I’m the model? Or that you paid me so much? Because that first letter came about that time, so I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume it’s the same person.”
“I happen to agree with you,” he says. “And the short answer is no, we haven’t found anyone.”
“And the longer answer?”
“Will have to wait.” He points to the broken window and the two men who are passing in front of it. “My team.”
We meet them at the door, but they choose not to come in until after the police arrive. Instead, they go back outside to canvass the area, pull the feed from the newly installed camera, and do whatever it is security guys do when they’re on the case.
“The longer answer?” I press as soon as they’re gone.
“We have a few leads. Arnold—he’s the investigator I keep on retainer—recently got copies of some security footage from an ATM on Fairfax.”
I shake my head, clueless.
“That ATM happens to be across the street from a coffee bar where our intrepid reporter has a habit of meeting with his sources.”