Die for Me

The room was silent. I could hear the seconds ticking away on an enormous grandfather clock in the corner. My breathing calmed, and I wiped my eyes, attempting to compose myself.

“It’s true. I’m not very good at showing my emotions,” Vincent conceded finally.

“Not showing your emotions is one thing. But ru

In a low, carefully measured tone he said, “If we had stayed, we would have had to talk to the police. They would have questioned both of us, as they must have done with the witnesses who stayed. I wanted to avoid that”—he paused—“at all costs.”

Vincent’s cold shell was back, or else I had just begun noticing it again. Numbness spread up my arms and throughout my body as I realized what he was saying. “So you’re”—I choked—“you’re what? A criminal?”

His dark, brooding eyes were drawing me toward him while my mind was telling me to run away. Far away.

“What are you? Wanted? Wanted for what? Did you steal all the paintings in this room?” I realized I was yelling and lowered my voice. “Or is it something worse?”

Vincent cleared his throat to buy time. “Let’s just say that I’m not the kind of guy your mother would want you hanging around with.”

“My mom’s dead. My dad, too.” The words escaped my lips before I could stop them.

Vincent closed his eyes and pressed his hands to his forehead as if he were in pain. “Recently?”

“Yes.”

He nodded solemnly, as if it all made sense.

“I’m sorry, Kate.”

However bad a person he is, he cares about me. The thought crossed my mind so abruptly that I couldn’t stop it from triggering a reaction. My eyes filled with tears. I picked up the cup of tea and raised it to my lips.

The hot liquid slid from my throat to my stomach, and its calming effect was immediate. My thoughts felt clearer. And weirdly enough, I felt more in control of the situation. He knows who I am now, even if I don’t know the first thing about him.

My revelation seemed to have shaken him. Vincent’s either struggling to hold himself together, I thought, or to hold something back. I decided to take advantage of this apparent moment of weakness to figure something out. “Vincent, if you’re in such a . . . dangerous situation, why in the world would you try to be friends with me?”

“I told you, Kate, I had seen you around the neighborhood”—he weighed his words carefully—“and you seemed like someone I would want to know. It was probably a bad idea. But I obviously wasn’t thinking.”

As he spoke, his voice turned from warm to icicle cold. I couldn’t tell if he was angry with himself for getting me involved in whatever mess he was in—or with me for bringing it up. It didn’t matter. The effect of his sudden frostiness was the same: I shuddered, feeling like someone had walked over my grave. “I’m ready to go,” I said, standing suddenly.

He rose to his feet and nodded. “Yes, I’ll take you home.”

“No, that’s okay. I know the way. I’d . . . rather you not.” The words came from the rational part of me. The part that was urging me to get out of the house as fast as possible. But another part of me regretted it as soon as I spoke them.

“As you wish,” he said, and leading me back through the grand entrance hall, he opened the door to the courtyard.

“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” he insisted as he blocked the doorway, waiting for an answer before he would let me leave. I ducked under his arm to squeeze by, passing inches from his skin.

My mistake was inhaling as I did. He smelled like oak and grass and wood fires. He smelled like memories. Like years and years of memories.

“You look weak again.” His hard shell cracked open just enough to show a glimpse of concern.

“I’m fine,” I replied, attempting to sound sure of myself, and then seeing him standing there, calm and composed, I rephrased my answer. “I’m fine, but you shouldn’t be. You just lost a friend in a horrible accident and you’re standing there like nothing happened. I don’t care who you are or what you’ve done to make you run away like that. But for it not to affect you . . . you’ve got to be seriously messed up.”

A surge of emotion crossed Vincent’s dark face. He looked upset. Well, good.

“I don’t understand you. And I don’t want to.” My eyes narrowed in disgust. “I hope I never see you again,” I said, and began walking toward the gate.

I felt a strong hand grip my arm, and whipped my head around to see that Vincent stood inches behind me. He leaned over until his mouth was next to my ear. “Things aren’t always as they appear, Kate,” he whispered, and carefully released my arm.

I ran toward the front gate, which was already swinging open to let me through. Once I was outside, it began to close. A loud crash that sounded like porcelain being smashed against marble came from somewhere inside the house.

I stood motionless, looking back at the massive metal gates. My intuition told me that I had done something wrong. That I had misjudged Vincent’s character. But all signs pointed to the fact that he was some sort of criminal. And from the smashing sounds still emanating from the house, maybe even a violent one. I shook my head, wondering how I could have lost my capacity for reason just because of a handsome face.

Chapter Nine

OVER THE NEXT FEW WEEKS, I COULDN’T STOP replaying the events of that day in my mind, over and over again like a broken record. From the outside I must have looked the same. I got up, did my reading at an alternate café, went to the occasional movie, and attempted to join Georgia’s and my grandparents’ di

Every time Vincent pushed his way into my mind I tried to push him back out. How could I have been so mistaken? The fact that he was a part of some sort of criminal network made more sense now that I thought back to that night at the river. There must have been some kind of underworld gang war going on. Even if he’s a bad guy, at least he saved that girl’s life, my conscience nagged.

But whatever his past contained, I couldn’t justify his cold detachment after Jules was hit by the train. How could anyone leave the scene of a friend’s death to insure his own safety from the law? The whole thing chilled me to the bone. Especially knowing that I had already started to feel something for him.

The flirty way he had teased me at the Picasso Museum. His intense expression as he grasped my hand in Jules’s courtyard. The comfort I’d felt when he placed his hand over mine in the taxi. These instants kept flashing up in my memory, reminding me of why I had liked him. I shoved them aside again and again, disgusted with myself for having been so naive.

Finally Georgia cornered me one night in my room. “What is wrong with you?” she asked with her usual tact. She threw herself onto my rug and leaned roughly back against a priceless Empire dresser that I never used because I was afraid I would break the handles.

“What do you mean?” I responded, avoiding her eyes.

“I mean, what the hell is wrong with you? I’m your sister. I know when there’s something wrong.”

I had been yearning to talk to Georgia but couldn’t even imagine where to start. How could I tell her the guy that we saw leap off the bridge was actually a criminal I had been hanging out with—that is, until I saw him walk away from his friend’s death without shedding a tear?

“Okay, if you don’t want to talk I can just start guessing, but I will get it out of you. Are you worried about starting a new school?”

“No.”