Kiss an Angel(38)

“Stop it, Daisy. You’re only making it worse for yourself.”

She saw he wasn’t going to give in. With a singleness of purpose that frightened her, he backed her against the storage closet.

She gazed numbly up at him. “Don’t do it,” she whispered. “Please. I’m begging you.”

For a moment he froze. Then his palms cupped her sides. While Sheba watched, he drew them down over her waist and hips, then moved up to feel her stomach, her back, the breasts he had cupped so gently in his hands only hours earlier. She shut her eyes in revulsion as he slipped them between her legs.

“You should have believe me,” she whispered when he’d finished.

He took a step away, and his eyes were troubled. “If you didn’t have it on you, why did you fight me?”

“Because I wanted you to trust me. I’m not a thief.”

Their gazes locked. He looked as if he were about to say something when Sheba stepped forward.

“She had plenty of time to get rid of the money. Why don’t you search the trailer, and I’ll look in your truck?”

Alex nodded, and Sheba left Daisy’s teeth began to chatter even though the night was warm. It said something about the relationship between Alex and Sheba that in this matter at least, each seemed to trust the other. Neither, however, trusted her.

Daisy collapsed on the couch and clasped her hands around her knees to keep herself from shaking. She didn’t watch as Alex went through the storage closets and riffled her belongings. A sense of inevitability had come over her. She could no longer remember what it felt like to have her life under control. Maybe she never had. First she’d done her mother’s bidding, then her father’s. Now this dangerous new husband had taken over her life.

The rustling noises were replaced by a heavy silence. She stared down at the worn pattern on the rug. “You found the money, didn’t you?”

“In the bottom of your suitcase, right where you hid it.”

She looked up and saw the bag lying open at his feet. A small pile of folded bills rested in his palm. “Someone put it there. I didn’t hide it.”

He pushed the money into his pocket. “Stop playing games. You’re backed into the corner. At least have the guts to tell the truth and face the consequences.”

“I didn’t steal the money. Someone wants to frame me.” It seemed obvious to Daisy that Sheba was behind this. Surely, Alex saw that. “I didn’t do it! You have to believe me.”

Her pleas died on her lips as she saw the rigid set of his jaw and realized there was nothing she could do to change his mind. With an awful feeling of resignation, she said, “I’m going to stop defending myself. I’ve told the truth, and I can’t do anything more.”

He walked over to the chair across from her and sat down. He looked tired but not as tired as she felt. “Are you going to call the police?”

“We handle our own problems.”

“And you’re judge and jury.”

“That’s the way it works.”

A circus was supposed to be a magical place, but all she’d found was anger and suspicion. She stared at him, trying to see through the impenetrable facade he presented. “What if you make a mistake?”

“I don’t. I can’t afford to.”

She felt a chill of foreboding at the certainty in his voice. Such perfect arrogance was a sure invitation for disaster. A lump grew in her throat. She’d said she wouldn’t defend herself again, but a tumult of emotions dragged at her. Swallowing hard, she stared at the limp, ugly curtains that covered the window behind him. “I didn’t steal the two hundred dollars, Alex.”

He rose and walked toward the door. “We’ll deal with the consequences tomorrow. Don’t try to leave the trailer. I promise that I’ll find you if you do.”

She heard the chill in his voice and wondered what kind of punishment he would impose. It would be harsh, of that she had no doubt.

He opened the door and stepped out into the night. She heard the roar of a tiger and shivered.



Sheba watched Alex walk away from her. As she gazed down at the two hundred dollars he’d given her, she knew she had to get away, and moments later she was speeding down the highway in her Cadillac, not caring where she was going, merely needing privacy to celebrate Alex’s humiliation. For all his pride and arrogance, Alex Markov had married a common thief.

Just hours ago when Jill Dempsey had told her Alex was married, Sheba had wanted to die. She’d been able to tolerate the ugly memory of the day she’d lost her pride and degraded herself in front of him because she’d known he would never marry anyone else. How could he find a woman who understood him as well as she did, his twin, his other self? If he wouldn’t marry her, he wouldn’t marry anyone, and her pride had been salved.

But today all that had come to an end. She couldn’t believe he had rejected her for that useless little toy, and the memory of herself, crying and clinging to him, begging him to love her, grew as fresh as if it had just happened.

And now, more swiftly than she could have imagined, Alex was being punished and she could keep her head up. She couldn’t imagine a more bitter blow to his pride than this. At least her humiliation had been a private one, but his was revealed for all the world to see.

Sheba hit the button on the radio and flooded the car with the sound of hard rock. Poor Alex. She pitied him, really. He’d passed up the chance to marry the queen of the center ring and ended up with a common thief.