Full Exposure

He was totally and completely screwed. There was no other word for it. He was in love with a woman who didn’t believe in love, who couldn’t believe in it. And he didn’t know if he was optimistic enough to believe for both of them.

He glanced back inside the studio, awed yet again when he saw the sculpture of Serena. Long, fluid lines predominated, some the thickness of a human thigh, some the wispiness of a human hair. Though it was an abstract, anyone looking could see the delicate arms and smooth thighs of a woman. When he was finished he would polish it until he could see his reflection in it, something he saw every time he looked in Serena’s eyes.

He took a long, deep swallow. The critics were gonna love it. Steve would wet his pants when he saw it. If Kevin let him have it. Part of him wanted to shout loud enough for the whole world to hear—look at my beautiful, amazing woman. See what she’s inspired me to do. But the bigger, selfish part of him—a part he had learned to listen to almost unconditionally—told him to hold the sculpture as closely as possible. Not to let anyone see it. Serena was his and his alone. No one else needed to know what beauty and light he had found with her.

The cordless phone inside his studio rang, but he kept his butt planted firmly on the porch. He didn’t want to talk to anyone except Serena. And she wouldn’t call. She never did—if he wanted to talk to her, he’d have to be the one to pick up the phone. It irritated him no end that he mattered so little to her that she never gave him a thought when she was away from him. Especially since he could do nothing but think about her.

On the fifth ring the answering machine picked up and Kevin waited for the message with idle curiosity. Probably Steve. Or Marsha. His mom was on a cruise and his best friend was currently searching for himself on a pilgrimage to the Far East. Kevin grimaced—artists could be so f**king pretentious.

He was struck, again, on the difference between his life and Serena’s. Sure, he was a recluse, but he had a mother who called and visited regularly and a best friend who would go to the wall for him. Who did Serena depend on when things went bad? Who did she talk to after a bad day?

“Kevin? I know you’re there. Pick up the phone.” Steve’s voice interrupted his reverie and he raised his beer in a toast, congratulating himself on guessing correctly. Probably calling to harangue him about doing some article or showing up at some party. There was no way he was answering that phone. He wanted to wallow in his loneliness, not perform for a crowd of art patrons like a trained ape.

“Damn it, man!” Steve’s voice crackled with impatience and an underlying note of concern. “It’s about Serena.” He paused, let his words sink in. Then, with a weary sigh, “When you get this—”

Kevin was at the phone in three strides. “Steve? What’s wrong?”

“I knew you were there. Look, Kevin, someone destroyed her car. I mean, totally destroyed it.”

“She was in an accident?” Fear coursed through him, making his heart race and his throat constrict so much that he nearly strangled on the words. “Is she all right?”

“No, man, not an accident. She’s fine. Physically, I mean. But someone really did a number on it. Broke the windows, slashed the tires. Graffiti, urine. The works.”

“You’re kidding me. What was it, a bunch of kids getting their kicks?” Alarm bells rang in the back of his mind even as he spoke, though he wasn’t sure why. The vandalism was disgusting, disturbing even. But it happened everywhere and it was just a car after all. But still. Something felt off.

Steve snorted. “Hell, no. The cops said this much damage means personal. Like crazed ex-boyfriend personal. The guy jacked off in her front seat and scrawled whore across her hood in huge red letters.”

For the first time in his life he understood what it meant when people said their blood ran cold. His literally froze in his veins, even as his stomach churned with fury and disgust. No one f**ked with his woman. No one.

“Where is she?” he demanded, heading toward his house at a dead run, the cordless phone still pressed to his ear.

“At the police station on Magnolia. Giving a statement and looking at some mug shots of sick-and-twisteds who do this kind of thing on a regular basis. What a world!” Steve’s voice was thick with his own disgust.

Kevin grabbed his wallet, slipping his feet into a pair of Birkenstocks as he searched frantically for his keys. “She called you?” he asked, not sure if he was more pissed about that or about the car. He pulled a clean T-shirt from his closet, shrugged into it without moving the phone from his ear.

“No, man. I called her to discuss this showing I just got her, but she was in the middle of this.” He paused for a minute, cleared his throat. “Look, Kevin, she never calls. If you want to be with her, you have to know that going in. She never calls, never asks for help, never expects anything from anyone. She’ll give you the shirt off her back, but she’ll never let you far enough in to hurt her. Or love her.”

Too late, he wanted to shout. But he was wasting time. He needed to see Serena, to run his hands over every inch of her and convince himself that she was really all right. This time he wouldn’t call—she was too good at lying about her feelings, with her words and her voice. But if he saw her, if he looked into those bittersweet chocolate eyes and held those trembling, emotional hands in his own, he would know exactly how much this had messed her up. Messed them up.

“Thanks for the warning. Look, I’m heading to Baton Rouge now.”

“I figured you were. Call me later and let me know what’s going on. How she is, you know.”

“Yeah. Absolutely.” He pressed the off button and tossed the phone on the couch as he spotted his keys next to the stove. Within five minutes he’d cleared the long, winding road to his house and his low-slung Ferrari was on the highway, cruising to Baton Rouge at nearly one hundred miles an hour. Usually he drove his old, beat-up truck, but today he wanted to get to Serena fast and his 599 GTB Fiorano would definitely do the trick.

He cruised for a while, passed a cop at one hundred and ten without even batting an eye. The cop wouldn’t be able to catch him and if he was smart enough he wouldn’t even try. A quick look in the rearview mirror assured him that the cop was indeed smart enough.

With an angry growl, he thought over his conversation with Steve. Fury was a living, breathing entity inside of him, crawling around his stomach and sending razor blades through his heart. She hadn’t called him. She hadn’t f**king called him.

Didn’t she get this whole relationship thing? Didn’t she realize that if something happened to her, he’d want to know about it? He was far from an expert on having a girlfriend, but even he knew to call when there was trouble. His fingers drummed restlessly against the steering wheel as his foot pressed down on the accelerator. He barely caught a glimpse of the sign stating that Baton Rouge was fifty miles away.

Good. He glanced at the clock. He’d already gone sixty miles in a little over half an hour. Forty minutes more and he’d be at the police station—thank God he’d grown up in Baton Rouge and knew exactly where Steve was talking about.

Who would do this? Who the hell would mess with Serena like this? She never hurt anyone, never bothered a soul. He thought over various comments she’d made—about how casual she’d always kept relationships, both romantic and platonic. How there hadn’t been anyone serious in a long, long time.

But this destruction didn’t sound casual—it sounded wanton, brutal and very, very personal. He’d never set much store by Louisiana cops, and if even they knew this wasn’t random, he figured Serena damn near had a huge bull’s-eye painted on her back.

But why? She kept to herself. Lived her life with little, true human contact. She teased him about hiding in the swamp, but they both knew the truth. She was the one hiding—she just did it in plain sight.

So why? What had changed recently? For the second time in an hour his blood ran cold. Two things had changed. Serena was involved in a serious, or at least semiserious relationship—with him. And Damien LaFleur was out of jail for the first time in ten years. He thought back over the accident in San Diego that had nearly killed her, suddenly remembered the woman’s statement claiming the SUV was aiming straight for Serena. Things suddenly clicked into place and the alarm bells that had been sounding in the back of his mind finally took center stage.

Had someone actually been trying to kill her in San Diego? And if he had, was it somehow connected to this vandalism? Could they afford to think that it wasn’t?

As the city came into view, he glanced at the time. Six-fifteen. Rather than going straight to the police station and taking the chance of missing her, he slowed the car to a reasonable eighty miles an hour and dialed her cell phone.

She answered on the second ring. “Hello.”

“It’s me.” His reply was terser than he might’ve liked, but his anger had ballooned all over again upon hearing the controlled stress in her voice. “Where are you?”

“I just got home. I’ve been out … running errands and things.”

His blood boiled at the lie. “Yeah, like to the police station to deal with your vandalized car?”

Her sigh was weary. “Steve called you.”

“You should have called me.” His fingers drummed out a staccato rhythm on the steering wheel. “Where do you live?”

“Why?” she asked, and he could almost see the wariness stiffening her spine.

His words came from between clenched teeth. “Because I’m five minutes from the city and I want to know where to meet you.”

“You’re on your way to Baton Rouge?”

“Bebe, I’m in Baton Rouge. Now give me some basic directions.”

He listened as she rattled off directions to one of the nicest areas in the city before listing her address. Mon Dieu, how the hell did someone vandalize a car in that neighborhood in broad daylight?

“You didn’t have to come, you know,” she said softly.

“You’re going to want to stop while you’re ahead, cher.”

“But—”

“Seriously. Stop. I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”

“Call me right before you get here. I’ll open the garage so you can get in. I don’t think you should park on the street anymore. Not with this going on.”

His fingers tightened on the steering wheel at the strain and hurt evident in her voice. Someone was going to pay, and pay big, for messing with her. He struggled to keep his voice even. “Fine. See you soon, bebe.”

He disconnected and made the next turn, so that he was headed her way.

Chapter Thirteen

Twenty-five minutes later he pulled his car to a stop in her garage. He would have been fifteen minutes earlier except he’d stopped for food, figuring Serena hadn’t eaten all day. “A Ferrari?” He climbed out of the car, clutching a couple fast-food bags and two Cokes, to find Serena staring incredulously at his car. “You actually own a Ferrari?”

She looked like hell. Her face was composed, her clothes neat and buttoned to the neck as always. Even her hair was in perfect order. But she was pale, her face lined with a strain that hadn’t been there before. He glanced at her hands—they were steady, but the nails were bitten to the quick.

He started to comment on it, but one glance at her eyes changed his mind. They were dark and dazed and pleaded for a little normalcy. So he simply shrugged. “If you’ve got it, flaunt it, cher.” There was time enough later to talk about what had happened. Now he just wanted to hold her.

Her laugh was a little strained, but basically real. “Way out there in the bayou, hmm?” She turned and headed into the house, leaving him to follow.

“There is no place on earth, bebe, that a Ferrari doesn’t fit in.” He dumped the paper sacks on her kitchen counter and then pulled her into his arms. “It’s like a magnificent piece of art—everyone can relate to it.”