She pushed him away and shot to her feet, her pulse racing, every nerve ending in her aching to smack him, even as the rest of her reeled at his kiss, wanted more, wanted all of him. “You are off base, Tabak, and way ahead of your precious facts. I’m not involved. And if I were, damned if I’d tell you.”

He frowned. “You know, darlin’,” he said in his twangy, exaggerated drawl, “you don’t make it easy for somebody to care about you.”

“Accusing me of being involved with a jewel thief is caring about me?”

“I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just letting you know where I stand.”

As he hadn’t, not with any honesty, ten years ago. He’d let her believe the worst about him. Now, he was getting it all up front and center. “You’d better leave now, Tabak, before I…” Too incensed to think clearly, she didn’t know what she’d do. “Well, you can imagine.”

“I sure can, sweet pea.” He smiled sexily, knowingly, incensing her even more. He touched her cheek with the back of a knuckle. “If you’re in trouble, you have my number. You have my address. Call me, find me. I’m after the truth, and if it hurts you, it hurts you. But I’ll still be there for you.”

“Lucky me,” she said bitterly.

A glint of humor sparked in his eyes. “You’re right on there, darlin’. Right on. I owe you for lying to you ten years ago. It’s a debt I aim to pay.”

He blew her a kiss, and Chet’s fingers stumbled on the keyboard. He recovered quickly, and again the room filled with his music. But Mollie was still reeling.

Jeremiah, in total control, left.

After a few seconds, Mollie was able to return to her booth. Well, she thought. Didn’t that serve her right? She’d been starting to think of Jeremiah with a soft and tender side, and he’d just shown her. Probably acted out of a sense of honor. Had to let her know up front what was what. If she was guilty, she’d hang. But he’d feel bad about it.

During his break, Chet beelined for his publicist’s table. “What the hell was that all about?”

“I don’t know.” She’d ordered another margarita, this one with alcohol. “I’m as taken aback as you are.”

“Should have slapped the son of a bitch.”

“I thought about it.”

His eyes narrowed on her. He was stocky, fit, in his late fifties. “There’s a history between you two.”

Mollie felt her shoulders sagging. A history. She’d talked herself out of believing a weeklong affair was any kind of history. But there was something about Jeremiah, something about their history, that still ate at her, still intrigued and agonized her.

“It’s none of my business,” Chet went on, “but guys like that, they feed on vulnerability. They can’t help it. They sense it, they swoop in for the kill. It’s just the way they’re made. Tabak knows every button to push to get the information he wants. He’s on this jewel thief story, isn’t he?”

“It’s not his sort of story-”

“He’ll make it his sort of story. Mark my words, he’ll find an angle that’s pure Jeremiah Tabak.” Something caught his eye, and his face lit up. “Ah, here’s my bride. Excuse me, Mollie, won’t you?”

“Sure, Chet.”

She watched him greet his wife, who sat with Mollie and didn’t ask about Jeremiah or Friday night. But after Chet had played the first piece of his second set, Mollie gave up on returning to solid form and just went home.

Driving north on 95, she played Leonardo’s collection of his favorite tragic, romantic arias and turned up the volume high. At first she blinked back the tears, then she just let them flow as her godfather’s incredible voice filled her soul and forced out all the emotions she’d bottled up since first spotting Jeremiah at the Greenaway. Frustration, loss, fear, anticipation. She even cried for the young woman she’d been at twenty, the path not taken, the dreams not realized. Her week with Jeremiah had slammed her up hard against reality. She didn’t want a career in music. She didn’t have good judgment in men. She wasn’t as worldly and sophisticated as she’d thought.

Now here she was, ready to make the same mistake all over again. Wanting a man she was crazy to want. Desperate to trust him, even when he suspected her of knowing something about a jewel thief, even when he promised if the truth led him where she didn’t want him to go, so be it.

She reminded herself that love and romance and physical attraction didn’t necessarily respond to logic and will. If she’d once loved Jeremiah, if a part of her loved him still, there was nothing to be done about it beyond accepting it and moving on.

And not giving in, she thought.

Never giving in. She was thirty, and she liked her life, and she wasn’t in the mood to let falling for the wrong man turn it upside down all over again.

8

The telephone didn’t stop ringing in Mollie’s living room office all Monday morning, but most of the calls were about business, none were about Jeremiah, only two were from friends about her Friday-night attack-and Deegan was there to answer them all.

“You are a godsend,” Mollie told him as he left with a stack of stuff for the printer.

He laughed. “Nice to be appreciated. You’ll manage without me the rest of the day? I don’t mind coming back this afternoon.”

“Thanks, but I’ll manage. I’ve got to write those press releases for the Renaissance Music Society. I’ll probably just hang in here the rest of the afternoon. I’ve got a dinner tonight.”

“Not another one-”

“It’s not business. Some friends of Leonardo’s invited me over. Anyway, if the phone doesn’t let up, I’ll just let voice mail handle it.” She smiled. “And if you see your grandmother before I do, please thank her for the flowers.”

A big bouquet had arrived first thing that morning, with a charming card from Diantha Atwood, wishing Mollie a speedy return to normal. Her thank you card was already in the mail. Deegan said, “I’ll do that,” and headed out, leaving Mollie to the phone, a stack of mail, and tons of work.

Her own parents had called last night after Leonardo, as promised, had ratted her out. They’d listened carefully to the details of the attack and offered to fly down at once-and said if she wanted to return to Boston, they’d clear out her old room, which they’d converted into a music library, and she could stay there until she got settled. Mollie had to fight back tears at their unconditional support. Unanchored in the real world as she knew them to be, she never doubted their love and affection for her, nor their total, if sometimes irrational, belief in her. But she’d assured them that the worst was over-and for a moment, she almost believed it herself-and when she’d hung up, she had to admit she felt better.

After Deegan left, she sat at the computer. The weather was as unsettled as she felt, with dark clouds, intermittent showers, and a breeze that was downright chilly. At least she wasn’t tempted to go sit out by the pool. She could just stay in and work.

The phone rang, and she briefly considered leaving it to her voice mail, but picked up. “Mollie Lavender.”

“I know.”

She sat up straight at the tinny, obviously altered voice on the other end. “Who is this?”

“Miami’s a dangerous place, Miss Lavender. Perhaps you should consider going back to Boston.”

A click, and then silence. Her hand shaking, Mollie quickly got a dial tone and hit the code for a playback of the most recent number called. But the disembodied voice said that the number wasn’t available.

She laid the portable phone on her computer desk.

“Oh my God.”

Her voice was a panicked mumble, and she thought she would throw up. Holding her stomach, she jumped to her feet and raced into the kitchen, not thinking, just reacting to the urge to get out, away from her office, her phone, her life. She grabbed keys and handbag and tore outside, not knowing where she was going, only that she had to get out of there.