The woman at the next table covered her face and began to wail out nonsense, her loud voice echoing throughout the restaurant.
Useless idiot. Do something instead of just screeching.
But the increasingly hysterical woman didn’t even try to staunch the bleeding and no one else came forward to help. Nadia snatched up her cloth napkin intent on putting pressure on the wound—wherever it was—and tried to rise again. The clamp on her wrist anchored her.
“Lucas, he needs medical attention. Call 911.”
Lucas grabbed her shoulders firmly and forced her to look at him. “It’s a play, Nadia. Mystery dinner theater.”
She’d heard his low-pitched words, but they didn’t make sense. She blinked, trying to comprehend. “What?”
“The victim and his date are both actors. You used to love Broadway. I wanted to surprise you with a show.”
He’d surprised her all right. “A play?”
She glanced back over her shoulder to the other people coming onto the scene, their lines projecting to even the farthest table in the room.
A play. And Act I was unfolding right in front of her.
Now that she knew what she was looking at, it was obvious. Good acting, but still acting with the gestures and expressions a little grander than necessary.
Tension drained from her limbs. She felt like an imbecile as she watched the assembled cast go through their lines and hit their marks. Her racing pulse slowed but her face burned. How many people had seen her try to charge to the rescue? Did everyone in the place except her know they were here for the entertainment?
She wanted to slide down by Lucas’s side and hide.
As if he understood, he shifted, draping his arm across her shoulders and pulling her closer on the vinyl seat. He laced the fingers of his opposite hand through hers and rested their linked hands on his thigh. The electrifying warmth of his palm, his shoulder and his leg pressed against hers made her breath catch. And then his scent, his heat and his nearness converted embarrassment into awareness. Her heart skipped anew.
She attempted to pull away. He tightened his hold. She couldn’t struggle or make a scene without drawing attention away from the actors who were finally moving en masse toward a stage that an opening curtain revealed.
“How did I miss the signs telling what this was?” she whispered.
He bent closer, his warm breath stirring her hair. “There weren’t any posted signs. The place looks just like a regular restaurant.”
His mouth brushed her ear as he spoke and then he sucked her earlobe between his lips. The jolt of arousal charging through her wasn’t welcome. She wiggled, intent on putting space between them, but his iron grip didn’t loosen.
“Be still. Enjoy the show.”
What choice did she have?
She focused on the cast, some rising from other tables around them to join the action in front of her. A detective swaggered onto the set. Nadia tried to concentrate on the dialogue, the setting and the story. Anything to keep her mind off the man fused to her side.
She’d always been a huge Broadway fan and often jetted to New York to catch an opening, but she’d never done a dinner theater where the cast actually masqueraded as diners.
When she and Lucas had been dating he hadn’t been able to afford Broadway tickets let alone the time off work to go to Manhattan. He’d introduced her to local theater and concerts in the park where more often than not they’d watched from a quilt on the grass. She’d loved the casual performances, but mostly she’d loved watching the entertainment from the vantage point of his arms. She was a little too comfy in those arms right now but another wiggle gained her no breathing room.
She pushed the memories away and immersed herself in the murder mystery until the curtain dropped for intermission. Lucas lifted their joined hands to his lips, jarring her back to the present. The soft brush of his mouth over her knuckles set her heart racing and ignited a flame low in her belly. Their gazes locked in the shadowy theater, and the urge to kiss him hit her hard and fast.
She adored the way he kissed.
“Enjoying the show?” he asked.
She needed to break the spell he’d cast over her before he had the chance to betray her again. But somehow she just couldn’t make her body follow orders and instead, she caught herself leaning toward him. “Yes. Thank you for thinking of this.”
“You’re welcome.” He released her hand and brushed back her hair, his knuckles skimming beneath her cheekbone in a caress that made her nerve endings quiver. The reflection of light off the polished crystal of his watch snagged her attention.
Time.
She’d lost track of time.
She bolted upright, grabbed his wrist and turned it so she could see his watch. She’d given up wearing hers weeks ago because awareness of the crawling minutes made the hours drag slower. And she’d had no need to worry about curfew since she didn’t go anywhere.
Eleven-thirty. She was going to be late. Adrenaline rushed through her. She dropped his wrist and scooped up her purse. “I have to go.”
The detective strolled onto the stage and began his monologue. She hated being rude and walking out in the midst of a performance, but her and her brothers’ inheritance depended on it.
“The play’s not over.”
“I can’t stay.” She slid out of the booth and hurried toward the exit.
Lucas caught up with her in the lobby, gripped her elbow and pulled her to a stop. His blue eyes searched her face. “Nadia, what’s wrong. Are you ill?”
The concern darkening his eyes and straining his face tugged at something deep inside her.
“No. But I…” How much did she want to tell him about her father treating her like a child by grounding her and setting a curfew? None of it. But again, her choices were limited. “Look, just take me home. Or if you want to stay and see the end, I’ll take a cab. But I have to go. Now.”
“You were enjoying the performance.”
“Yes, I was. The show is great. But I have to go.”
“I’ll drive you home if you level with me.”
She hesitated. “Lucas, could we please have this conversation en route? I’ll explain. I promise. But, please, get me back to the apartment. And hurry.”
He crossed to the maitre d’, said a few words and handed the man a couple of folded bills, then he returned to Nadia’s side. “Let’s go.”
Dozens of phrases ran through her head as she hustled to the car. None sounded right, and she still hadn’t come up with a suitably edited version of the disaster called her life by the time he’d pulled onto the highway.
He glanced at her. “Start talking.”
She sighed. It should have been easy to confess the whole sordid mess in the darkened car, but she couldn’t. “I have to be home by midnight.”
“Why?”
“It’s a condition of my father’s will.”
“And if you’re not?”
“Things could get ugly. Not just for me, but for Rand and Mitch and Rhett.”
“I’ve met Mitch and Rand, but who’s Rhett?”
“My half brother. Dad surprised us with an illegitimate one-year-old son.”
She had yet to see anything more than e-mailed photos of her baby brother. There hadn’t been time to meet him or cuddle him before she left, and thanks to the stupid will she wouldn’t get the chance before next June. By then he’d be two, no longer a baby and probably not interested in letting his estranged half sister hold him.
Rhett looked just like a Kincaid. Who would her son have taken after? Would he have been dark-haired and green-eyed like her or blond and blue-eyed like his daddy?
“How could it get ugly?”
Lucas’s question hauled her from the deep well of what-might-have-beens. She debated how much to disclose and decided to keep it short. Need to know, as Mitch would say.
“If I don’t follow the rules, I’ll jeopardize our inheritance. I’m not going to do that.”
“This is all about money?”
“No. It’s about me coming through for my brothers for once instead of always relying on them.” Oops. She’d said too much. She hoped he missed her slipup.
“Relied on them how?”
She winced. “They were there for me after you…died. I wasn’t…in good shape. And I owe them this. I have to do my part.”
Lucas muttered something that sounded like a curse under his breath. “Your father was a real piece of work.”
“No kidding. And the more I learn—” She bit off the words.
“The more you learn…what?”
Lucas had been privy to too many of her rants about her father in the past to be surprised by the secret she’d never disclosed to anyone. Not even her brothers. “The more I wonder whether he loved me or hated me.”
“Because you reminded him of your mother.”
He remembered. She swallowed, trying to ease the lump in her throat and nodded. He took one hand from the steering wheel, reached across the center console and covered her fist and squeezed reassuringly.
“Hating you is impossible, Nadia. Believe me. I tried.”
His words hit her with a punch of choking emotions. The scary part was the feeling was mutual. She couldn’t hate Lucas, either. But she had to get over him and move on. Because her memories of the perfect love they’d shared were nothing more than fantasies.
True love didn’t come with a price tag.
“We made it with five minutes to spare,” Lucas said as Nadia shoved her key into the lock.
“I’m sorry I made you miss the ending of the play.”
She opened the door and stepped inside, glancing around and wondering not for the first time if there was a camera or a trip switch or some other 007 gadget to register her comings and goings and whether she was solo or accompanied by a party. Or was her monitoring system something more basic, like her father had bribed the security staff? That would be more Everett Kincaid’s style. Her father had always believed everyone had a price. History had shown he was usually right. Take Lucas, for example.
Wouldn’t Lucas love knowing his team had sold out to her father? But she wouldn’t voice her suspicions, because she wasn’t sure what would happen if the reporting on her activities suddenly stopped. Her father’s crazy will had left too many strings untied and too many questions unanswered. And all of the clauses were unbreakable, or so her brothers said. They’d each hired teams of lawyers to try to break the will with no luck. She hadn’t had the cash to do so.
Now that she was back in her prison away from home, her heart slowed for the first time since she’d raced out of the restaurant. They’d had to detour around a traffic accident and she’d panicked, afraid of being late. She’d never had a problem with deadlines before. In fact, at work she thrived on them. But five minutes to midnight was cutting it too close for her peace of mind.
She turned in the foyer and startled at finding Lucas right on her heels. Close enough to touch if she wanted. And she didn’t. Okay, yes, she did. And that wasn’t good. Time to finish this before her weak will landed her in trouble.