My Immortal Page 5

Dani stole another glance up at the cross as she nestled into Adele’s embrace, and wondered if humans were even capable of that kind of love. Surely if they were, Adele would be her mother and all would be right with the world.

  Instead she knew she had to face that lonely bed in the children’s home where she couldn’t even see her baby brother when she wanted. But at least they were somewhat together, and that was all Dani had to hold onto. If Father Mike was right and there was a God, Dani prayed that one day he’d give her the family of her dreams.

  Adele, as always, lost track of time with Dani curled up beside her like a contented kitten. She never wanted it to end. Since she was determined never to have a child of her own, she poured everything she could ever give another human being into this tiny creature – the only person in the world who had Adele’s heart in their possession.

  It was well into the afternoon by the time she returned Brenda home and managed to get back to the studio. She rushed by Sam Duncan's office, praying he was giving someone else the third degree for a change and wouldn’t notice. He wasn’t too keen on her erratic schedule but managed not to yell too much as long as she got the story. Thanks to Denise Carter that had become increasingly harder to do, and she didn’t need another lecture from him reminding her of it.

  The smell hit her before she could round the corner. Something in her office was different, and she knew immediately it was flowers. Had she missed something? Was it her birthday already? That was the only time anyone sent her flowers and it was always from her mother. When she saw her desk she knew it wasn’t her mother this time.

  There were flowers everywhere, red roses in particular. Several arrangements covered her desk, some sat on her file cabinets, and some even on her window sill. She glanced over at Brian, who was armed with nasal spray and a handful of antihistamines. He grinned at her with bloodshot eyes. “Can you tell Prince Charming that your office mate has severe allergies?”

  “What are you talking about? I don’t know who sent these.”

  He stifled a sneeze as he pointed to a card on her desk. She picked it up and noticed the ornate N-S embossed on the top. “You’ve got to be kidding,” she whispered. She opened the envelope. I’ll be dining at Gerard’s this evening, it read. I’d love the pleasure of your company. Nicholas.

  She sent a puzzled glance to Brian who was grinning like a Cheshire cat. “Bon appetit.”

  “Like I’m going to go,” she said. She didn’t date. And she had no intention whatsoever starting with this man who had such an odd effect on her.

  Brian laughed and sneezed simultaneously. “Suit yourself. I’m sure Denise Carter won’t mind stepping in.”

  Adele pursed her lips as she glared at him. He was right, and she knew it.

  She was uncertain that she was going to go right up until she was being led by the maître d to Nicholas’s table. It would have been so much easier, and so much smarter, to never lay eyes on the man again. She could pawn off her story on an underling, give the flowers away to charity, and once again resume the solitary, devoted life she had always enjoyed – or at the very least tolerated.

  However Adele found herself unable to do that and she really couldn’t even blame her rival. Her thoughts returned to those dark eyes and how looking into them warmed her all the way to her toes. It was an entirely new feeling and not altogether unpleasant.

  She spent the entire afternoon going back and forth, arguing with herself over what to do. She finally convinced herself that this was a golden opportunity to get close to a man most reporters in her town would have given their eye teeth to interview, especially Denise Carter. He could call it a date if he wanted, but for Adele it was all business.

  At least that’s what she told herself. She tried not to think about why she took extra care to slip into a show-stopping red dress that clung to every curve and dipped low to expose the creamy expanse of her chest. She justified every single second she spent getting her makeup just so. She had never even taken as much care standing in front of the camera as she took in preparing for this date. “Interview,” she insisted to herself again. It was an interview.

  Nicholas stood as she approached the table. Though she was not necessarily short, he towered over her; his suit could barely contain his muscular build underneath. Her breath was once again wrenched from her lungs at the mere sight of him, and she could not lie that the smile of appreciation on his face was worth all the extra effort she had put into her appearance.

  It really was easier to catch flies with a little honey.

  Of course the cynical part of her wanted to know exactly what his agenda was. She knew for a fact the likes of Denise, who was younger, blonder and thinner, made her look like a wallflower in comparison no matter how artfully her makeup had been applied.

  But the other part of her, the girly part she’d fought so hard to bury, felt more like a woman in his eyes than she’d ever felt in her adult life. She didn’t feel like a silly substitute, she felt sexy and appreciated. For just a moment she understood what romance novels had been written about.

  She just hoped it didn’t show on her face.

  He reached out a hand to help her up the steps to their private table, once again bringing her fingers to his lips. “I’m so glad you could make it,” he murmured against her flesh, a sensation that tingled all the way down to her toes.

  She pulled her hand free from a touch that was both extremely foreign and extremely exciting to her. “Thank you for inviting me.”

  He pulled out her chair. She felt the heat of his body as she sat. “But you weren’t going to come,” he assessed. She could hear the smirk in his voice.

  “No, I wasn’t,” she admitted.

  “May I ask what changed your mind?”

  “Curiosity,” she stated simply.

  He just chuckled. “Curiosity killed the cat. Or so the saying goes.”

  “I think you’ll find I’m a lot more formidable than a cat, Mr. Sterling.”

  His eyes appraised her. “I don’t doubt that. And I must insist again that you call me Nicholas. It’s much too nice an evening to ruin with such stiff formalities, don’t you think?” She grew restless under his penetrating inspection and turned her attention toward the rest of the restaurant.

  “It’s lovely here,” she commented off hand.

  “It’s lovelier now,” he said softly. Her stomach lurched into her throat as she met his gaze. “You look beautiful, Adele.”

  Her name seemed to roll off of his tongue, like he’d been calling her by her first name for years. Her look of surprise reminded him of his manners. “If I may call you that,” he added.

  “Of course,” she squeaked out, before clearing her throat. “Although you may not want to call me anything after you read my expose on you and your company.”

  This seemed to amuse him. “I look forward to reading it,” he said with a slight twinkle in his eye. As he sat back she caught glimpse of one of the large bodyguards from the hotel dining with Thaddeus at a table behind them. Her quizzical frown drew Nicholas’s attention in their direction. He answered her questioning expression. “You can never be too safe.”

  “Especially when you deal with daily death threats,” she added. “That must be upsetting.” She watched his expression for any hint he was going to let down his guard. There was none.

  “I do not fear death,” he said with a casual shrug. “Not truly living, that’s the tragedy. Some people live very long lives and are never truly happy. Some people die young and never know the agony of growing old. It’s all a matter of perspective.”

  “And are you happy?” she queried softly.

  He touched her hand on the table. “At this moment? Blissfully.”

  She blushed and again withdrew her hand. A wine steward approached, carrying a bottle of Merlot. Once the cork was popped and properly approved by Nicholas, the wine steward prepared to pour the wine into Nicholas’s glass. Nicholas covered the glass with his hand and indicated with a slight tilt
of his head that the honor should go to Adele.

  Adele lifted the crystal glass of blood red wine to her lips, tasted, savored, and then nodded. The steward poured the glasses and made a discreet exit.

  Nicholas’s eyes never left hers as he took his first sip. “Exquisite,” he complimented. “You’re a woman of many talents.”

  “Only one,” she corrected as she set her glass aside. She was already drunk enough. Alcohol was just going to add insult to injury.

  “Do you have any further leads on the serial killer?” he asked, his direct question taking her completely off guard.

  “What makes you ask?”

  “I’ve seen your reports about it. You seem highly invested.”

  “Who wouldn’t be? These are kids. They don’t deserve to die.”

  He cocked his eyebrow slightly. “You say that as if anyone deserves to live.” She sucked in a surprised breath and looked quite appalled by his comment. “That is not to suggest that their dying wasn’t tragic,” he continued. “It’s just the human race seems so entitled to things that are not guaranteed. It’s sad that children die, but sometimes that’s nature's way. People live long enough to fulfill their purpose and then they’re gone. The cosmic joke is we all think we have control over any of it.”

  For once, he wasn’t looking at her. His eyes focused on the wine in his glass, and he seemed to drift somewhere far away. “You speak like someone who has lost someone dear to him,” she surmised.

  His jaw clenched tightly for just a moment. “I did,” he finally admitted. “And the pain of that has stretched on for what seems like an eternity. Finally I had to come to terms with the fact that she had a purpose, she fulfilled her purpose and it was simply the choice of fate that she went. It hurt,” he added softly. “It still hurts. But that’s simply the way things are.”

  For once she saw someone else in the same light everyone viewed her – awed that someone who appeared so strong could be so vulnerable at the same time.

  This time her hand reached for his. His grateful eyes met hers. “She must have been very special.”

  “She was the love of my life,” he stated in nothing more than a whisper, his eyes locked with hers.

  “You were one of the lucky ones,” Adele told him. “Love is no more guaranteed than living. It’s not a right. It’s a miracle. Maybe that was her purpose. So that you’d experience what so many never do.”

  She nearly jumped when his fingers curled around hers. She’d somehow forgotten that they were touching, as though the line of where she ended and he began had started to blur. “And what about you, Adele? What is your experience?”

  She shrugged. There was no way to tell him, and strangely enough she wanted to. That had never happened to her before. “I’m not so lucky,” she finally said.

  As the night wore on they talked about everything and nothing. If she had come to get an exclusive interview on his business, she couldn’t even remember if they broached the topic at all. Instead she found herself laughing at his amusing stories of traveling throughout Europe, and he listened intently to her experiences as a small town reporter. He had wanted to know everything, and she found herself answering more questions than she had asked.

  He had asked her to dance, which she initially refused. But within moments she couldn’t even recall she was whisked away toward the dance floor and floated on air as he spun her in elegant circles. Though she had never taken a dance lesson in her life, she found herself able to follow his lead through a sophisticated waltz. She was unaware of the precise steps that she took; all she could think about was the way his strong arm wrapped around her waist and drew her soft curves close to his hard body. It was as if everything outside of the circle of his arms disappeared each time she fell into those dark eyes holding her fast in a commanding embrace.

  She couldn’t even swear there had been music at all.

  By the time the restaurant closed they still lingered over a shared dessert and the last drops of their wine. Regretfully they both stood and much to her chagrin he insisted that she allow him to drive her home, rather than wait for a cab.

  He absolutely refused to consider that she walk like she had originally insisted.

  They sat close together in the back of his limousine. He had offered her more wine but she was already drunk enough. As they pulled up in front of her house she turned to say goodbye. Her heart lodged somewhere in her throat when she caught the way he was looking at her, his hand hovering near her head as if he wanted to run his fingers through her hair.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, transfixed by the abnormal white stripe she had long come to curse since it exploded with a vengeance right along with puberty. “It’s just… your hair…”

  She nodded as she looked down. “I know. It’s weird.”

  Gently he tipped her head back up to look into his eyes. “No,” he said softly. “It’s beautiful.”

  Just momentarily she lost herself in those rich, dark eyes. They were so sincere, as if they were trying to convey a message he couldn’t yet form into words. It was an unspoken question, and a multitude of answers – none of which she was prepared to face.

  Her heart skipped a beat when his gaze fell upon her slightly parted lips with a hunger she instinctively understood. Likewise her attention was drawn to his full mouth, and the promise of a kiss that suddenly hung in the air. She could see it play out in her mind, and feel its effect in her body. Her stomach lurched and her heart did cartwheels in her chest, but it wasn’t an unwelcome feeling. In fact, it was strangely familiar – as if she had been in this exact spot before.

  Perhaps she dreamed it, she thought. The irony didn’t escape her that a pleasant dream like this one would be the one dream she wouldn’t remember.

  But this wasn’t a dream. She felt the heat of his body as he sat close to her in that cozy darkened car. He was solid and real – not some deranged bogeyman chasing her through her twisted imagination. All she had to do was close her eyes, lift her chin and a kiss could be hers. It was something she had always avoided, but here, in this moment, she could think of absolutely nothing she’d want more.

  For just a moment she felt normal… and whole. And it was scaring her to death.

  He must have sensed the inner battle waging in her mind, because he took matters into his own hands. His fingers slipped along her neck and into her hair, which set her nerve endings on fire. Her eyes widened as his head made an almost imperceptible journey towards her own. She felt the imprint of his kiss before his lips could even touch hers, and with a murmured thanks she spun out of the car and ran up the steps toward her house before she did something incredibly foolish.

  Because in that moment, God help her, it was all she wanted to do.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “I don’t love anyone!” Adele shot up in bed, the scream strangled in her throat. In the background, CDs played soothing ocean sounds. She pushed the “How To” books on relaxation from the nightstand and exposed the bottle of pills. She opened it and slid the last two onto her palm. She tossed that empty bottle on top of all the others in the trash can beside her nightstand.

  The next morning she wore large purple bags under her eyes as she sat across from Dr. Ashcroft. The lack of sleep was starting to wear. Her fingers shook as she pushed her hair from her face.

  “I think you should give the pills a chance to work, Adele,” Dr. Ashcroft advised. He had correctly assumed she had not filled the prescription he had given her last. With the description of her dreams, one could hardly fault her for not wanting to sleep.

  “They’re not working,” she insisted, but somehow knew that he could tell she was lying. “The nightmares are back and they’re getting worse. It’s different this time.”

  “That’s what you say every time.”

  She shook her head. “It really is different.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “How is your story coming?”

  “It’s not that either,” she argued. In frustrati
on she jumped from her chair and paced in the room.

  He leaned forward on his desk. “You’re processing a lot of traumatic information, Adele. The subconscious works things through in its own way. We’ve gone over this”

  “That’s not it! The nightmares are different. I’m different.”

  He sighed and stood, walking around to face her. “No, Adele. You’re not. You’re still the same girl who used to push down all her feelings until they spilled out in other ways. Every time we get close to a breakthrough on dealing with those emotions you do everything in your power, both consciously and unconsciously, to bury it.”

  She just shook her head and held herself protectively.

  “Are you hearing voices?” he asked.

  She shook her head again. Another lie.

  “Are you feeling as though you could hurt yourself or others?”

  “No!” she exploded. “It’s not like that. It’s just the same damn nightmare that has haunted me nearly all of my life. I come to you for help and instead of making them go away you just pat me on the head and drug me up just like everyone else.”

  “Adele,” he began again, his tone patient and firm, “in order to deal with this nightmare we really have to dig deep and confront your past. You know this. We have to talk about what happened, and exactly what it means regarding who you are. You have to make peace with the trauma surrounding your identity. Otherwise, you run the risk of repeating what happened when you were fifteen.”

  It made her heart sink to hear it, because deep inside she knew it was true. She just couldn’t face it. Not yet. Not ever. She took the crumpled blue prescription and threw it at her doctor. “Take your stupid pills and go to hell.”

  She spun and ran from the room before he could stop her.

  She didn’t stop running until she hit the front door of the studio, running late, as always. She dodged Duncan and raced into her office to find Brian enjoying his mid-morning break. “Good morning,” he grinned. “Or should I say, good afternoon?” She responded with an angry glance over her shoulder. One look at her face had Brian immediately concerned. “You look like hell, Addie.”