Chapter Twenty-Three

“Alexi.” Blayne bit her lower lip nervously. “I need to know something.”

“And what is that?”

“Vaso told me that…that you have feelings for me.”

Alexi exhaled a long breath and a look came over her face that said I am so going to kill her for that. Blayne didn’t wait for one of her non-committal answers. There was too much she needed to say.

Trying to keep her emotions level, she reached for the remote and switched off the television, then moved the pizza box so there was nothing in between them. She faced Alexi, one leg tucked under her body, her arm resting along the back of the couch.

Alexi, without thinking, mimicked her posture, so that their fingers were nearly touching. Their body language said that it was time for a talk. An intimate talk, acknowledgement that time between them was short and there were things that needed to be said and there could be no more running away. They had the safe house to themselves. Dombrowski had gone back to his hotel to catch a few hours sleep and wouldn’t return until the next morning.

It had been a long day. Alexi was fatigued to the core, but she had managed to get a nap after dropping Vaso at the Fairmont hotel and picking up a few essentials, like a cell phone and another Beretta 92F and additional ammunition for her revolver. She had expected Blayne to be sleeping already, especially after finding her eating pizza with Dombrowski on the couch in the living room, the television blaring ancient Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons. Instead their star witness was wide awake and wanted to talk.

Alexi looked longingly at the stairs that led to her bedroom. Just a few more nights with her, and then she will be out of my life. She promptly ruined any comfort she might have taken in that thought by imagining what it would be like to lie beside Blayne, spooning her from behind, bodies breathing in unison as slumber claimed them. She glanced sideways at Blayne and knew her distraction level must be obvious. Somehow Blayne could read her as others could not.

“Alexi. The thing is…” Blayne’s voice emerged a half-note higher than normal. “I…I had come to the conclusion…after I interrupted you, with your friend…” She couldn’t look at Alexi. “That you’d been turning me down because I wasn’t your type. I mean, she was beautiful. Blonde…thin…”

“Blayne, you are a beautiful woman,” Alexi interrupted, but Blayne held up a hand to stop her.

“Please, let me get this out?”

“All right.”

“I admit I had a hard time with it. I was pretty upfront about what I wanted. And I also just couldn’t really understand it, because I mean, there were… are…definitely an abundance of sparks between us. Something special.” Blayne stole a glance at Alexi for confirmation of this, and her heart soared to see Alexi’s eyes moist with emotion. It gave her courage to continue.

“Vaso said that…sleeping with that woman was kind of your way to try to get me out of your system. But it didn’t succeed in doing that at all. Was she right?”

Alexi couldn’t look at Blayne, because she was certain Blayne would see the depth of her true feelings in her eyes. Instead, she stared at their hands, so close together on the back of the couch that if she leaned forward only slightly she could bring their fingers together. She longed for some physical contact, any physical contact, but would not allow herself to initiate even that. She felt that if she touched Blayne right now, she would be taking a step toward something inexorable—life-altering, a step she could not retreat from.

Blayne’s candor made her realize with startling clarity how very deeply the woman sitting beside her had penetrated all of her well built and maintained defenses. She had come to mean more to her than anyone before, and Alexi’s ability to push her away was crumbling fast. It is true, Blayne, she wanted to say. No woman can replace you. No woman can make me forget you.

She knew she had a choice to make. Here and now. And she had to make it fast. She could go on living as she always had. Safe in her emotional distance from the rest of the world. Or she could take that one big risk she had always avoided. What the hell am I going to do? She had no immediate answers. Her head was spinning. But she realized that at the very least, she had to let Blayne know that yes, Vaso had been right. I only want you.

When she finally answered Blayne’s question, it was only with a slight nod of her head.

“I know that you think that any relationship with me will compromise you doing your job…” Blayne edged closer and placed her hand on top of Alexi’s. “But it doesn’t have to, you know. It doesn’t. No one will ever know, if that’s what you’re worried about. And I know that no matter what, you’d never let anything happen to me if you could prevent it.”

A very long silence fell between them. Alexi tried to calm the pounding of her heart with deep, even breaths, but she felt not at all in control of her runaway emotions. Blayne’s hand atop hers was driving her crazy. It begged to be caressed. It invited her to give in to the overwhelming urge to pull Blayne close and kiss her.

She felt as though kissing Blayne would tilt her world right again and bring everything back into focus. But she feared the repercussions of giving in to that impulse. You are absolutely right. No matter what, I will not let anything happen to you. Even if that means I cannot have you.

“It is impossible, Blayne. I am sorry.”

“Why, Alexi. There’s more to it, isn’t there? Something you’re not telling me?”

She hated to talk about it. Hated even thinking about it. But when she looked into Blayne’s eyes she knew she had to erase the doubt she saw there. She had to let Blayne know just how much she wanted them to be together, even if it could never be so. Blayne deserved that much.

“This is my first WITSEC assignment in many months,” Alexi began tentatively. “I left my job because…because of what happened to the last witness I was assigned to protect.”

She slipped her hand from underneath Blayne’s and got to her feet. A sudden restlessness came over her as the memory of that night became vivid again in her mind. She began to pace.

“Her name was Sofia Galletti, and she was married to a man who was very high up in the Salvatore Crime Family.”

She heard Blayne’s startled gasp. “That’s the same…”

“Yes. Vittorio Cinzano is a Salvatore underboss. Sofia was married, very young, to the previous underboss…the man Cinzano replaced.” Alexi let this information sink in before she continued. “Her husband was a bastard. He beat her. Cheated on her. Made her life a living hell. But there is no such thing as divorce when you are married to one of them. Her only way out was to disappear. And she needed WITSEC for that. So she called us and offered to turn on her husband.”

She paced some more. “I protected her for two months, through her husband’s trial. He was sentenced to life without parole.” She paused and met Blayne’s eyes, needing their calm harbor. “We were attracted to each other, and she tried again and again to…to get me to have sex with her.”

Blayne nodded, understanding beginning to dawn.

“I put her off, though it was not easy, during the entirety of my time assigned to protect her,” Alexi continued, turning away to stare out the window into the darkness beyond. “After the trial, she was assigned to another Marshal, one from the district where she was to be relocated. But she would not go. She said that she had fallen in love with me and wanted to be with me.”

“Were you in love with her?” Blayne asked.

“No.” Alexi folded her arms and shook her head. “Not in love. But she was a lovely woman. Sweet. Vibrant. Caring. Certainly not at all deserving of the life she had been forced to endure.”

“You cared about her,” Blayne said.

“Yes. It got personal and I did have feelings for her,” Alexi admitted. “Anyway. She called me a couple of nights after the trial ended. We had said goodbye to each other and she was due to leave for orientation the next morning. But instead, she slipped out of the motel where her new Marshal was guarding her and telephoned me. She asked me to meet her at the safe house where we had stayed. Said she needed to talk.”

Alexi wasn’t sure she could tell the rest. She had only relayed the full story once before, to Vaso. Oh sure, she had repeated all the relevant details to a variety of local and federal officials during the investigation that had followed the shooting. But only Vaso had known about her feelings, her uncertainties, and her guilt.

“She begged me to take her away somewhere,” she said finally, an ache tearing at her chest as the past came to life again in her mind. “Told me that she loved me, and could not be happy without me. Pleaded with me to love her. To make love to her.”

She wanted to remember those loving moments that had followed, but her mind seized upon the image of Sofia’s naked body slumped in the corner, surrounded by red, and she could not shake the memory.

“I told her that it could not be as she wished. That no future was possible with me, because I did not return her feelings in kind. I told her that I cared about her, but I did not love her.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “She cried. We talked some more. She asked me again to make love to her, to give her one evening to remember. I was not assigned to her anymore, so I let myself believe it would be all right.”

Pacing the room, she recited the rest of the story as she had for the official record, with a voice as cold as Sofia’s lifeless body. They had fallen asleep and Sofia had later awakened her after hearing a noise downstairs. She had investigated. Heard shots. Ran upstairs, only to be knocked out. When she had regained consciousness, she found Sofia Galletti dead and the men responsible gone.

She wondered now whether it was Fletcher who had tipped the mob on where they might find Sofia. Most likely, yes. But that knowledge did nothing to assuage her own guilt.

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Blayne’s voice from behind startled her, she had been so lost in reliving the past.

“It is not something I care to revisit,” Alexi responded simply. “But I felt you should know now.”

“It explains a lot. I’m sorry that it…that it haunts you so.”

You are a very perceptive woman. Alexi turned to face Blayne squarely. “I wanted you to know because you have become very important to me. Just as Vaso told you. I wish that there could be more, but you now know why I can never let that happen.”

“Not even after you stop protecting me?” Blayne asked.

Alexi returned to her seat on the couch and gave her a rueful smile. “Blayne, I am not the one you want. I am afraid I have no experience at all at relationships. I have avoided them all of my life.”

Blayne cocked her head and looked at her curiously.

“Why? Do you know?”

She shrugged and stared at the floor. “I have not thought too much about it.”

Blayne studied her face. “If you’ll pardon my saying so, perhaps it’s time you did. Because I think you’re throwing away something very precious here. I think we could be great together.”

Alexi ran her hand absently through her hair. She couldn’t meet Blayne’s eyes. She wanted to say the old familiar refrain she had repeated to every woman who had ever said anything like that to her: I am not what you want. I cannot make you happy for long. I don’t know how to do relationships. But she could not say those words with any conviction right now. Not to Blayne. They were only tired excuses, worn thin repeated so many times.

Admit it. You are not pushing her away any more because of some noble devotion to duty, or because of Sofia, or even because it is just what you always do. You are afraid. That is all. Heaven forbid you allow hope in your life. That would mean you would have to stop running from any kind of real and meaningful intimacy in your life. Alexi lifted her head and met Blayne’s eyes. Ironic, is it not, that I would gladly take a bullet for you but I struggle so to gather the courage to risk my heart to you.

She knew it was probably fruitless to be considering what she was considering. Is it possible? Can we be together? No, she decided. We will all probably be leaving here in a few hours… The course has been set and the clock is ticking. It is far too late to be thinking that there is a way to make this possible.

“It cannot happen between us, Blayne. We just need to accept that.”

Blayne was looking at her with such hurt and such longing, such need, that her body, totally of its own accord, leaned ever so slightly in Blayne’s direction. She could drown in the depths of those eyes, pulled in by the gravity of emotion and want she saw there. The desire to kiss her, to convey to her what she could not say in words, had never been greater or more difficult to resist.

But the image of Sofia’s dead body rose again in her mind, and she stood abruptly, breaking eye contact. Struggled to breathe. “You need to go upstairs, Blayne.” Her voice was a harsh whisper. A ragged plea. “Please.”

“Are you absolutely certain that is what you want?”

“It is what has to be,” Alexi answered. She didn’t watch Blayne stand, she didn’t want to see her walk away.

The briefest touch of Blayne’s hand on her shoulder as she passed by was almost more than she could cope with. As soon as she was alone, she poured herself a whiskey, doused the lights, and allowed herself to grieve. For Sofia. For what could never be. She was emotionally and physically exhausted. And totally at a loss wondering how she could fill the void in her life that would be left when Blayne was gone.

Vittorio answered his cell phone instantly, though it was well after midnight. He had been waiting for hours for this call.

“There is only one person with her and the lights are all out.”

“Excellent,” Vittorio replied. “We are leaving now.” He ended the call and reached for his coat. His bodyguard rose from the chair opposite his desk and they headed for the car they had acquired for the night.

His bodyguard was one of the few people close enough to Vittorio to risk offering any thought that might be taken as criticism. “Are you certain you want to be there, yourself?”

Vittorio was not offended by the question because he knew it was asked out of genuine concern for his welfare, something rare in his world.

“There will be no more fuck-ups if I am there to see to it personally.” He made sure his voice conveyed only a hint of the rage and frustration he felt at so many missed attempts on Blayne Keller’s life. “And I must admit, I will not mind seeing her face when justice is served.”

An hour or so after retreating upstairs, Blayne was headed back down. She’d had a good cry, and then spent a restless half hour tossing and turning, and finally gave it up. She now had the sudden urge for some warm milk, like her mother had made for her as a child. She wondered whether her craving was more psychological than physical in origin. All she knew, all she could think about, was that she would soon never again see the woman who had finally captured her heart. And there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.

She felt wretched. Lost. Empty inside. And sad to the very core of her being.

It was an old house, and a couple of steps in the middle of the staircase creaked as she descended. She winced as she hit each one, praying the noise wouldn’t wake Alexi. The house was dark, but there was enough ambient light coming in through the living room picture windows that when she reached the bottom step and turned toward the kitchen she could see a silhouette in the big chair beside the couch.

Her heart jump-started in alarm, but then she heard the clink of ice in a glass from that direction and realized it was Alexi. She could not see her face, but she could feel her intense scrutiny.

Alexi could not look away. Blayne was wearing a snug tank top and French cut panties that left almost nothing to the imagination. She had paused right where a shaft of light from the streetlamp outside could cast her breasts and hips and thighs with seductive shadows that invited closer inspection.

Alexi stifled a moan of pleasure at the sight and downed a long gulp of whiskey. She had been doing nothing but imagining Blayne in something similar, or less, for the last hour. She had fantasized about kissing her. Sweetly. Hungrily. Torturing herself. And her imaginings had been so vivid that it was too much…just too much…to see her only a few yards away, looking like that.

Alexi could not help herself. She was drawn inexorably to Blayne because it was no longer about wanting to kiss her. She had to go to her. It was an act of desperation. The only thing she knew to do to stop the hurting. She deposited her glass on the table beside her elbow and got to her feet, approaching her slowly, without a word.

As Alexi came closer, Blayne could see that she was still wearing her jeans and black T-shirt, but it was not until she stood facing her, with only a foot or so between their bodies, that her expression took shape in the darkness. An expression that she suspected mirrored her own. Hungry. Driven. Her eyes heavy lidded with unmasked desire. The muscles in her chiseled jaw clenching and unclenching as though she was wrestling to contain a wellspring of feeling. She was staring at Blayne’s mouth, and her rapid breathing seemed unnaturally loud.

Blayne glanced down at Alexi’s hands. They were clenched into fists at her sides.

This is all that she can do. As far as she can go. But she needs more, and so do I.

As their eyes met again, Blayne brought her right hand up slowly, afraid that any sudden movement would spook Alexi away, like a sudden noise would make a deer bolt for the woods.

She touched her fingertips to Alexi’s lips. Tentatively at first. Lightly traced the outline of the mouth she had stared at for hours and dreamed of for days. Then she pressed softly against the fullness of that ripe lower lip, and when she felt the softness give, and part, ever so slightly, she insinuated her thumb fractionally and heard Alexi’s sharp intake of breath.

Alexi’s fists gentled as they rose to cup Blayne’s face. Her heart clenched at the first touch of that soft skin beneath her hands and the face before her blurred in a shimmer of unexpected tears.

She blinked them away and pulled Blayne’s face to hers, and kissed her.