Meg heard the car creeping along behind her. Although it was barely ten o’clock at night, the chilly October rain had emptied the streets of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. She walked faster past the wet, black garbage bags that sagged at the curb. Rain dripped through the fire escapes above her head, and trash floated in the flooded gutters. Some of the former redbrick tenement buildings on Clay’s block had been spruced up, but most hadn’t, and the neighborhood was dodgy at best. Still, she hadn’t thought twice about clearing her head with a trip to her favorite cheap deli for a hamburger. But she hadn’t counted on the rain driving everyone inside on her way back.

The building that housed Clay’s cramped fifth-floor walkup was almost two blocks away. She’d subleased his dingy apartment while he was in L.A. shooting a meaty role in an indie film that might be the break he’d been waiting for. The place was small and depressing, with only two minuscule windows admitting trickles of thready light, but it was cheap, and once she’d gotten rid of Clay’s greasy old couch, along with the detritus left behind by various girlfriends, she had room to make her jewelry.

The car stayed with her. A quick glance over her shoulder showed a black stretch limo, not anything to get nervous about, but it had been a long week. A long six weeks. Her brain was fuzzy from exhaustion, and her fingers so sore from laboring over her jewelry collection that only willpower kept her going. But her hard work was paying off.

She didn’t try to convince herself she was happy, but she knew she’d made the best decisions she could about her future. Sunny Skipjack had been on target when she’d said Meg should reposition herself for the high-end market. The boutique managers she’d shown her sample pieces to liked the juxtaposition of modern design and ancient relics, and the orders had come in more quickly than she’d dreamed possible. If her life’s goal was to be a jewelry designer, she would have been ecstatic, but that wasn’t her goal. Not now. Finally, she knew what she wanted to do.

The car was still right behind her, its headlights yellow smears on the wet asphalt. Rain had soaked through her canvas sneakers, and she pulled the purple trench she’d found at a secondhand store more tightly around her. Security grilles barred the windows of the sari shop, the Korean discount home-goods store, even the dumpling place—all closed for the night.

She walked faster still, but the steady hum of the engine didn’t fade. It wasn’t her imagination. The car was definitely following her, and she had a block to go.

A police car sped by on the cross street, siren blaring, red light pulsing in the rain. Her breath came more quickly as the limousine pulled up next to her, its dark windows menacing in the night. She started to run, but the car stayed with her. Out of the corners of her eyes, she saw one of the back windows slide down.

“Want a lift?”

The last face she’d ever have expected to see peered out at her. She stumbled on the uneven pavement, so dizzy she nearly fell. After everything she’d done to cover her tracks, here he was, framed in that open window, his features shadowed.

For weeks, she’d labored deep into the night, focusing only on her work, not letting herself think, refusing to sleep until she was too exhausted to go on. She was ragged and empty, in no condition to talk to anyone, let alone him. “No thanks,” she managed. “I’m almost home.”

“You look a little wet.” A shaft of light from a streetlamp cut across one molded cheekbone.

He couldn’t do this to her. She wouldn’t let him. Not after all that had happened. She started to walk again, but the limo stayed even with her.

“You really shouldn’t be out here by yourself,” he said.

She understood him well enough to know exactly what lay behind his sudden appearance. A guilty conscience. He hated hurting people, and he needed to reassure himself that she wasn’t permanently damaged. “Don’t worry about it,” she said.

“Would you mind getting in the car?”

“No need. I’m almost home.” She told herself not to say any more, but curiosity got the best of her. “How did you find me?”

“Believe me, it wasn’t easy.”

She kept her eyes straight ahead and didn’t slacken her pace. “One of my brothers,” she said. “You got to them.”

She should have known they’d cave. Last week, Dylan had taken a detour from Boston to tell her Ted’s calls were driving them all nuts and she needed to talk to him. Clay sent her a stream of text messages. Dude sounds desperate, his last one said. Who knows what he might do?

Worst-case scenario? she’d replied. He’ll miss a 4-foot putt.

Ted waited until a taxi passed before he replied. “Your brothers gave me nothing but trouble. Clay even told me you’d left the country. I forgot he was an actor.”

“I told you he was good.”

“It took me a while, but I finally realized you wouldn’t accept money from your parents anymore. And I couldn’t see you leaving the country with what you took out of your checking account.”

“How do you know what I took out of my checking account?”

Even in the dusky light, she could see him raise his eyebrow. She moved on with a snort of disgust.

“I knew you’d ordered some of your jewelry materials on the Internet,” he said. “I made a list of possible suppliers and got Kayla to call them.”

She stepped around a broken whiskey bottle. “I’m sure she was more than willing to help you out.”

“She told everyone that she owned a boutique in Phoenix and she was trying to find the designer of some jewelry she’d spotted in Texas. She described a few of your pieces—said she wanted to carry them in her store. Yesterday she got your address.”

“And here you are. A wasted trip.”

He had the nerve to sound angry. “Do you think we could have this conversation inside the limo?”

“No.” He could deal with his guilt all by himself. Guilt didn’t add up to love, an emotion she was done with forever.

“I really need you to get in the car.” He grunted out the words.

“I really need you to go to hell.”

“I just got back, and trust me, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Damn it.” The door swung open, and he jumped out while the limo was still moving. Before she could react, he was dragging her to the car.

“Stop it! What are you doing?”

The limo had finally braked. He pushed her inside, climbed in after her, and slammed the door. The locks clicked. “Consider yourself officially kidnapped.”

The car began to move again, its driver hidden behind the closed partition. She grabbed the door handle, but it didn’t budge. “Let me out! I don’t believe you’re doing this. What’s wrong with you? Are you crazy?”

“Pretty much.”

She’d delayed looking at him for as long as she could. Any longer, and he’d see weakness. Slowly she turned her head.

He was as dazzling as ever with those tiger eyes and bladed cheekbones, that straight nose and movie-star jaw. He wore a charcoal gray business suit with a white shirt and navy tie. She hadn’t seen him so formally dressed since his wedding day, and she struggled against a dark tide of emotion. “I mean it,” she said. “Let me out right now.”

“Not until we’ve talked.”

“I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to talk to anybody.”

“What do you mean? You love to talk.”

“Not anymore.” The interior of the stretch had long seats running up the sides and tiny blue lights edging the roof. An enormous bouquet of red roses lay on the seat in front of a built-in bar. She dug into her coat pocket for her cell. “I’m calling the police and telling them I’ve been kidnapped.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“This is Manhattan. You’re not God here. They’ll send you to Rikers for sure.”

“Doubtful, but no sense taking chances.” He snatched the phone away and shoved it in the pocket of his suit coat.

She was an actor’s daughter, and she produced a bored shrug. “Fine. Talk. And hurry up about it. My fiancé’s waiting for me at the apartment.” She pressed her hip against the door, as far away from him as she could get. “I told you it wouldn’t take me long to forget you.”

He blinked, then reached for his bouquet of guilt roses and set them in her lap. “I thought you might like these.”

“You thought wrong.” She flung them back at him.


As the bouquet hit him in the head, Ted accepted the fact that this reunion wasn’t going any better than he deserved. Kidnapping Meg had been one more miscalculation on his part. Not that he’d planned to kidnap her. He’d intended to show up at her door with the roses and a heartfelt declaration of everlasting love, then sweep her off into the limo. But as the car turned onto her street, he’d spotted her, and all his common sense had vanished.

Even from the rear, with her body enveloped in a long purple trench coat, her shoulders hunched against the rain, he’d recognized her. Other women had the same long-legged gait, the same determined swing of the arms, but none of them made him feel as if his chest had imploded.

The dim blue lights in the limo’s interior picked up the same shadows beneath her eyes that he knew had taken up residence under his own. Instead of the rustic beads and ancient coins he was used to seeing dangling from her ears, she wore no jewelry, and the tiny, empty holes in her lobes gave her a vulnerability that tore at him. Her jeans poked out beneath the hem of her wet purple trench coat, and her canvas sneakers were soaked. Her hair was longer than it was when he’d last seen her, spangled with raindrops, and bright red. He wanted her back the way she’d been. He wanted to kiss away the new hollows below her cheekbones and put the warmth back in her eyes. He wanted to make her smile. Laugh. Make her love him again as deeply as he loved her.