He didn’t take the glasses away from his eyes, but he relaxed back onto the stack of newsprint behind him. “A little over a year ago I thought I was the Danforth that had everything going. I was engaged to marry my college sweetheart. We were redecorating the farm so the two of us could start our lives there. I had recently been named Chief Counsel for my family’s business. And my best friend from boarding school had just moved to the area to help me put together the family’s new charitable foundation.”
He took a breath. “Everything was right with the world.”
“A charitable foundation?”
Marc nodded in the dark, but she could see his features by the faint light streaking through the dirty windows. “The Danforth Foundation. I wanted our family to stand for something important. Dad was willing. He thought it would be good for his political career.”
“So what happened? Did you set up the foundation?”
“No.” He took a deep breath and she knew he was steeling himself to say something that might hurt. “I…I was pretty full of myself at the time. Thought I was on the brink of a great life with the perfect woman. Thought I was better than my brothers and cousins who wouldn’t or couldn’t settle down and find someone who loved them.”
“Pride has been the downfall of many men and women over the centuries,” she whispered.
Shaking his head sadly, he grimaced. “Yes, well. I had it—in spades. Then last fall, I got lucky and managed to come home a day earlier than I’d planned from a fund-raising trip I’d taken with Dad. The condo was dark. I figured Alicia was already asleep so I took off my shoes and tiptoed to the bedroom.”
Marc sighed, and hesitated to continue for long enough to make her afraid of what was to follow.
“I heard a noise coming from our bed that no man in love should ever hear,” he finally said with a shudder. “When I turned on the light, there was my fiancée…in the throes of naked passion and…straddling my best friend.”
Seven
Dana pressed her lips tightly together, trying to silence the cry that was forming in her throat. She knew Marc wouldn’t want her to be shocked, or disgusted, or sorry for him. But she was—damn it. She was all those things and more.
How could anyone treat a nice guy like him that way? With all the bad guys she’d met in life, why was it that the one good guy ended up being the one that got shafted?
“So did you kill them?” she muttered. “No jury on earth would’ve convicted you if you had.”
She heard him chuckle and was relieved to know she’d taken the right tack.
“No. But I have to confess that I considered it.” He put the glasses down and took a slug of old coffee. “What I did was slink away to lick my wounds. I moved out to the farm, changing scenery to get away from the memories. And I dove into my work. I kept mostly to myself, except for a few charitable fundraisers and a couple of mandatory family functions.”
He laughed out loud at his own misery. “So of course, I had to be the Danforth that Escalante chose for his frame-up. Nothing like a grand jury indictment to get a person back in the limelight…whether they want to be there or not.”
Dana figured Escalante had picked on Marc because he was squeaky clean and made a good martyr. The papers ate up that kind of thing.
But Escalante hadn’t counted on the FBI…and her.
Marc fell silent again, and she was content to quietly sit and think as the night wore on toward dawn. Dana made two definitive decisions. First, she was going to take down Escalante—personally. If she had to hound him for the rest of her life, the drug lord would never forget that he’d picked the wrong man to persecute.
And secondly, Dana vowed to be the one to bring Marc back into the world of caring relationships between a man and a woman. She had absolutely no experience with such things, of course. But she sure as hell could give it her best shot. For a man who simply oozed sexual energy, he’d been celibate long enough.
She refused to consider that maybe she wanted to explore their relationship for purely selfish reasons. No. It was much easier to tell herself she was doing this to save a good and kindhearted soul from his lonely and isolated life.
If Marc wanted her the way he said he did, then she would be the first woman to let him know he was still a desirable man. A desirable man who didn’t need a woman that came with an ugly background and no class. A woman like her.
Anyway, she knew the two of them would never be able to forge a lasting relationship. She was sure that Marc saw that as well as she did.
So she just must be the right one to bring him back his sexuality. Because of their wide differences, he wouldn’t feel like he was obligated to her in any way. That should make things easier on him. He’d be free to make love to her and then go back to his life when she moved on with hers.
Yes. That was a sensible solution. It was a nice thing to do for a decent but terribly injured man.
Dana wasn’t entirely positive she could become enough of a vamp to make him forget his past. But at the very least she had to try to help him heal. Knowing next to nothing about sexual things didn’t matter when it came to Marc.
If she had anything to say about it, their pretend love affair was about to become very real.
“It’s almost dawn,” she told him softly. “We’d better get out of here before the neighborhood begins to wake up and we’re spotted.” She gathered the coffee mugs and folded the blanket that she’d spread out for them to sit upon.
“No one showed up last night,” he grumbled.
“No. I’m afraid most surveillance is like that. Hours and days of boredom punctuated by a few minutes of sheer terror.”
“Can we try again tonight?”
She cocked her head to study him in the gray light. “It might be better if we got another team from the FBI’s new task force to take over the watch every other night.”
He closed his eyes and made an effort to keep his voice low. “I have to do something, Dana. I can’t…I can’t just sit around waiting for someone else to save me.”
“We’ll keep you involved. I promise.” She led the way to the back of the building. “Are you hungry? Sleepy? Need a shower?”
Marc stepped through the alley entrance and secured the door behind him. What was he besides being frustrated, he wondered?
Dana moved to the driver’s side of her FBI-issued car and unlocked the doors.
“I’m just great thanks, Miss Mother Hen,” he lied.
How had his life gotten so messed up? Feeling as helpless as he had when his mother died, he tried to think of what had worked back then that helped make him feel stronger? He’d only been a baby really, but he remembered that something had calmed him. What had it been?
He thought about his older brothers, misbehaving to act out their grief and frustration at not understanding their mother’s death. But how had he managed?
It suddenly hit him. “Dana, have you ever seen the sun come up over the Atlantic?”
“What?”
Smiling, he buckled himself into the passenger seat beside her. “I suppose you have. But you’ve never seen it the way it is from Crofthaven. That’s what I want to do. Do you mind?”
“What?”
“I want to go watch the sun come up from the private cove at Crofthaven. Okay?”
“Well, I guess so. We won’t