Suddenly, there was a vulnerable expression on her face, something she hadn’t meant to reveal at all. He could almost see the words on the tip of her tongue that darted out to lick her lips.
Her cell phone blared with its familiar ringtone. It irritated him that the possibility of learning something important about Victoria was interrupted by some woman singing about being brave.
She cleared her throat, rose from the couch, and retrieved her phone from the table by the window. “Hello?”
Her face lost all color. Atticus immediately rose and took her hand. She didn’t look at him, but surprisingly, her fingers tightened around his. The voice on the other end sounded urgent and insistent.
“No, I understand. Please don’t apologize. I’m glad you called, but I don’t know if I can get a flight out—”
“I’ll drive you,” he said. “Tell them you’ll be there in three hours.”
Her gaze met his, and the fear he noted in hers was like a punch to his gut. It was bad. Whatever it was, she was terrified.
She swallowed and closed her eyes. “I will be there in three hours. I promise I’ll hurry.”
When she hung up, he waited for her to explain, to tell him what the emergency was that had her so damn scared.
She took a deep breath and met his gaze. “Thank you. I assure you, it’s important.”
He was stunned and stared at her for a full minute until she looked away. “You’re not going to tell me.”
A pained expression twisted her lips. “I can’t.”
He wanted to believe that it was a secret, something she couldn’t tell anyone. But not being a man who believed an overly dramatic possibility, he had to face that the truth was probably more mundane. She didn’t trust him. Why should she?
And why the hell did that hurt like a damn sore tooth?
“Pack your things, Victoria. You don’t have to tell me anything.” He gathered up the papers and returned them to the file folders.
“Finch—” she started and then bit her lip. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “For what? Your personal life is your own.”
He glanced at her face and watched her lips tighten, resignation making her blue eyes dull. “Right. Thank you, Atticus.”
She walked away so she missed the way his head snapped up. Atticus. She’d called him Atticus.
Damn it. He preferred Finch.
* * * *
Why the hell couldn’t she tell people about her mother? Tori stared out the window of the sedan as it sped through the lighted streets of Las Vegas.
Really, Finch had been damn patient. But she couldn’t explain that her mother was a drug addict, one with serious medical problems she refused to face. For years, Tori had detached from her mother, allowing the woman to find her own path, refusing to be her enabler. The woman had never forgotten that Tori had turned away from her, even though it had been the best thing for Tori to do at the time. Six months ago, though, Tori had gotten a call from a doctor who had wormed Tori’s information out of one of her mother’s revolving lovers.
Her mother had brain cancer.
She was no longer capable of taking care of herself, the cancer advanced so far that there was no hope for surgery or recovery. Especially since her mother had kept shooting up. Her body had been ravaged by the drugs, and now, the cancer was taking the rest.
About the time Tori had started trying to help her mother, who didn’t want help, the company she’d worked for, that paid the bills, was under siege. She was terrified of losing her job, of having to start over with someone completely dependent on her.
The night landscape out the window was as dark as Tori’s thoughts. Damn it. All she’d wanted was one weekend to let loose. She’d admitted her mother into a rehab facility, but her mother had escaped, probably because the facility specialized in head trauma patients, not wily drug addicts.
They had called to inform her that her mother was on the streets of Los Angeles, looking for a fix. With the brain cancer, her mother would be lucky to still be alive. She forgot things, had no verbal filter, peed her pants. And now she was out on the streets.
Fuck. She never should have gone to this conference. Even with their strained relationship, Tori was the only one who her mother remembered consistently. Everyone else was a faceless enemy.
How could she tell her friends about this when she’d told them all that her mother was dead? It had been a lie, a secret she had to keep. But Tori couldn’t leave her mother to die alone.
“The last movie you watched,” Atticus interrupted her black thoughts.
“What?”
“You look like you need to think about something else. I’m distracting you.” He shot her an amused glance. “Or would you rather stare out the window looking miserable for three hours?”
She turned in her seat to glare at him fully. “It’s a toss-up, Finch.”
He smiled, and her heart rate accelerated. “Try talking to me. What was the last movie you watched?”
“Why?”
He sighed heavily. “Would you rather tell me what’s breaking your heart?”
“Hell no.”
“Then, last movie?”
She cleared her throat. “You’ll laugh.”
He met her gaze briefly, a solemn expression on his face. “Try me.”
“
Fifth Avenue Girl
.” It was a black-and-white movie that she’d loved since her aunt had introduced her to Ginger Rogers and the joy of dumb, old flicks.
“I’ve never heard of that one.”
Tori snorted. “You and everyone else.” She smiled. “It’s a romantic comedy with Ginger Rogers. And she doesn’t dance in this one.”
“What’s it about?” he asked, seeming interested.
“Ginger Rogers plays a woman who’s down on her luck and meets a rich, older guy who is being neglected by his family. She helps him celebrate his birthday.” Tori smiled. “Of course they get snockered and wake up barely remembering very much. His family puts the worst interpretation on their relationship.”
“Weren’t they…?” Atticus let the sentence trail off, and Tori laughed.
“No. Funny enough, he just wanted company, and she was being nice. But the rich man’s son thinks she’s a home-wrecking gold digger. Despite that, he falls for her.” The movie was one of her favorites, and she didn’t mind talking about it. “It never fails to make me laugh, and I’ve needed a laugh.” Shit. She hadn’t meant to say that last part. “What about you, Finch? Did you have a private screening of the latest blockbuster?”
He cocked his head and frowned. “You have a distorted view of my lifestyle, Victoria.”
She glanced around the interior of the sedan, complete with leather seats that warmed her ass. “Do I?”
“You think I fly George Lucas in and play the latest in some pretentious theater? Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “No, I go to the movies or watch them at home, just like everyone else. But the last movie I rented is distressingly obvious.”
“
Anchorman Two
?” she quipped and then grinned. “Oh wait. I know.
The Dirty Dozen
.”
He shot her a look, and she laughed. He glared at her. “Lucky guess.”
“How conventional of you, Finch.” This was the most fun she’d had in weeks. “Did you cry?”
He rolled his eyes. “Okay. Last book you finished.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” she insisted.
“And I’m not going to. Last book, Victoria,” he said sternly.
“I reread
Pride and Prejudice
,” she answered. “It’s my favorite book. Very conventional of me.” She leaned back and realized that she’d come to rely on her little battles of wits with Finch to lighten her mood. The man was such a contradiction and fun to tease.
“So do you believe that every single man with a fortune must be in want of a wife?” he said with laughter in his voice.
“Why, Finch, you shock me. You’ve read Jane Austen?” She widened her eyes. “How can that be?”
“I had a sub who wanted to read it to me.” He shot her a look that could only be classified as mischievous. “I allowed it for certain…compensations.”
“I’ll bet,” Tori said as she studied the man. He had dark, smooth skin, and his hair was as black as ink but looked soft. She’d always wanted to bury her fingers in the strands to see if it felt as good as it looked. And the man’s eyes were the epitome of “bedroom eyes.” So dark they seemed like chips of obsidian, they exuded a sensual promise that drew Tori like a clichéd moth to the flame.
“For the record, the last book I read was a technical manual on a program we were thinking of purchasing,” he said.
“I don’t think so,” she said with a shake of her head. “That doesn’t count.”
His smile was crooked and sexy like the rest of him. “All right. For pleasure, then?” He turned to briefly meet her gaze. “I read a mystery. It was disappointing. So much so that I can’t remember the title or the author.”
“Do you have a favorite book?” she asked casually.
“Are you sure you want to know?”
She raised an eyebrow. “
Penthouse
?”
“The
Kama Sutra
.”
The way he said the title immediately brought the sensual images from that ancient text to her mind. She’d read it once, and it had been more of a sexual experience than some of the erotic literature she favored.
“Next topic,” she said. Her voice was breathless. Damn it. The man unnerved her, drove her insane, and made her think about hot sex in the back of the car. She veered between the desire to crawl in his lap to surrender to whatever he wanted and squaring off with him in defiance.
“Favorite childhood memory?” he asked breezily.
Well, that brought her down with a bump. Her childhood had been filled with so much pain and violence. Betty Rodgers had been a single, unwed mother without a clue who had fathered her very unwanted daughter. Drugs were all that mattered to her.
If Betty’s sister hadn’t stepped in, taking five-year-old Tori in, who knows what might have happened. Angela Rodgers was a single woman with no children of her own. And though she’d raised Tori, their relationship wasn’t all that warm. Aunt Angela hadn’t wanted the responsibility of raising a child, but she couldn’t allow her niece to live in squalor.
Over the years, Betty had quit using a number of times, and the hope was always there that this time would be different. But it never was. All those childhood memories were tinged by her mother’s drug abuse. It wasn’t easy to find one that wasn’t.
Then there came that fateful night when Tori’s lie became truth due to Aunt Angela’s actions. And now, it was a secret Tori had to keep.
“Victoria?” Finch’s voice brought her back with a crash.
“My aunt took me to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.” It had been one of those trips that coincided with a business trip for Angela. Tori had been fifteen, and her aunt had brought her because there was nowhere else to leave her. Aunt Angela hadn’t trusted Tori by herself. “I loved that place.”
She had loved the quiet, the way it seemed easy to avoid people, the maze of corridors. History didn’t interest her much, but the silence was perfect. Tori wondered if that’s what sub space was like, that perfect quiet and peace. She’d always wanted to try it.
Gina had always been a fount of information about being a submissive. Tori had never had the nerve to go to the gatherings that Gina frequented, but she’d attended an erotic convention once. Gina had been part of a demonstration and showed the crowd how to use a flogger. It had been exciting to watch, and the experience tapped into a need Tori wasn’t sure how to meet.
“You certainly do a lot of navel gazing.” Finch interrupted her thoughts.
“Navel gazing?” She glanced down at the hem of her shirt. Nope. Her navel was covered. What the hell was he talking about?
“Thinking. Getting lost in thought.” His mouth twitched. “I’ll have to find another way to hold your attention.”
If it hadn’t been for the fact that Tori’s mother was somewhere on the streets of Los Angeles with a tumor in her head, she might have had an answer for just how he could hold her attention. “Don’t worry, Finch. You’re not boring me yet,” she quipped.
“Maybe you could try and relax.”
“Are you implying that I shouldn’t worry my little head?” she asked with a biting tone.
“No. I’m suggesting that we have a long drive ahead of us, and worrying will not get us there faster.” He was so damn calm. The cold-hearted bastard.
“Well, I already know what you think of me, so you’ll excuse me if I choose to worry.” She couldn’t keep the anger out of her voice, even though she was well aware she’d directed it toward the wrong person.
“I’m revising my opinion.” He didn’t react to her tone.
She wasn’t going to ask him. Whatever he thought of her was none of her business. “What opinion was that?” The words slipped out. Damn it. She should just put a gag over her mouth.
“I thought you were the kind of person who would rather do something than think it through.” He shot her an assessing glance. “But I’m starting to believe you think too much.”
“Heaven forbid I have a coherent thought in my head, right, Finch?” she snapped. “I’m sure you’d rather have a bimbo for a secretary, but you might come to appreciate one with a damn brain in her head.”
“I said ‘too much,’” he said sedately, which only made her seethe more. “Are you telling me that you don’t have the proverbial hamster wheel going on right now?”
Oh, how she wished she could deny it. The bastard. Yes, her thoughts went round and round, never stopping, never quiet. It’s why numbers were her thing. They added up, made sense. Everything else seemed like a twelve-ring circus with no ringmaster.
There were three things that stopped the incessant head noise: work, music, and a damn good orgasm. The last item was rare and difficult to find, so she relied on numbers and her huge selection of music to get her through the day.
Nell often marveled at Tori’s penchant for doing complex calculations with heavy metal blaring in her ears. She couldn’t wear headphones at work, but she’d put them on at lunch or a break, and the noise in her head would stop. Music didn’t require second dates or explanations or condoms. Just a little cold hard cash and a set of headphones.
“And you’re gone.” Finch’s voice was filled with laughter, and she couldn’t help it. She snorted and turned toward him.