“And go where?”
“To DC. Where I actually live. Remember? We’re going to attend the retirement dinner party of one of my long-time executives, and we’ll hang around DC for a few days.”
“But I’m not ready to be going to any party, Vince. I need to know what happened to my sister, and who framed her before I can be in a party mood.”
“It’s not about a party,” said Vince. “It’s about getting you as far away from Milton as I can until we get those answers you want. That lead guard is on the loose. We don’t know his agenda. I say they’re targeting you just like they targeted your sister. Until the evidence says differently, we’re going with what I say. You’ll be far safer in my world.”
“But what about my family? I want to continue to check on them. Just by the way they talk to me I’m sure any inroads we made earlier, although we didn’t make hardly any, but the little progress we did make is over because I went with you three weeks ago instead of with them.”
Vince knew it too. He went up to her and placed his arms around her and pulled her close. “I have a security detail on your family. Nothing’s going to happen to them, so don’t worry about them. And when you made that decision to come with me after that bombing? You did the right thing, Ricki,” he reassured her.
But he could tell she wasn’t entirely assured. Her body still didn’t feel relaxed the way it felt before she heard that news.
He lifted her chin and looked her in the eyes. “When this is all over,” he said to her, “then you can make amends with your family. But for right now? Where I go, you go.” When her eyes began looking away from his eyes, he lifted her chin again. And forced eye contact. “Understand?”
That was an easy call for Ricki. He not only had the will to protect her, but he also had the resources. “I understand,” she said.
And when she said those words such a feeling of love overtook her that she couldn’t help herself. She wrapped her arms around Vince just as tightly as he was wrapped around her.
It touched Vince so deeply that he closed his eyes with a hard squeeze. He had to tell her. Sooner rather than later he had to let his feelings for this precious woman be known. And verbalizing that knowledge for the first time in his life could make him or break him. The problem for Vince was that he was in seriously unchartered territory.
It could go either way.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The entire trip was surreal to Ricki. From riding in that limousine to the airfield, to boarding his huge, private jet and flying into Washington, DC, all the way until they were driving up to the Watergate where Vince told her he owned a penthouse apartment.
Ricki was floored as the limo stopped and the driver got out. “Are you telling me that you live here? That you actually live at the Watergate?”
Vince smiled. “That’s what I’m telling you.”
“Just so I’m clear,” said Ricki. “This is THE Watergate? As in Richard Nixon and Woodward and Bernstein andAll the President’s MenWatergate?”
George Grantham, who had bummed a ride with them and who also lived at The Watergate, laughed. “Such innocence!” he said. “What on earth is she doing with you?”
“Goodbye George,” Vince said, and George, still laughing, got out of the limo and made his way inside.
Vince looked at Ricki. “Yes, Rasheda,” he said, “this is that infamous place. Although it was in the office complex of The Watergate, not the apartments, where the break-in occurred.”
When Ricki still looked confused, Vince explained. “The Watergate is a complex filled with offices, a hotel, and apartments. I live in the apartments.”
“Oh,” said Ricki, nodding her head. “Got it.” But then she thought of something else she’d been forgetting to ask him. “Another thing,” she said.
Vince smiled. “No, I don’t visit the office where it happened.”
Ricki frowned. “That’ll be creepy. Why would you do that?”
Vince laughed. “What’s your question?”
“Who’s Bachman?”
Vince nodded. A reasonable question. “He used to be my partner. We started Fontaine-Bachman together when we were nineteen years old. He died in a ski accident when he was only twenty-three. In his memory, I didn’t remove his name.”
Ricki nodded. “That is so nice of you, Vince.”
“Don’t tell any of my employees I’m nice. I’m doomed if they ever think that. Now let’s go inside.”
But as they got out of the limo, she was still in awe.
