The Christmas Present

  Vivian reached over and squeezed his hand. “You’ll figure it all out.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “You will.” Her voice was soothing, certain. “You’re frantic right now, but give it a little time. Things will get sorted out. They always do.”

  He couldn’t help wondering what Vivian’s life was like that she could be so optimistic. Nothing in his own had shown him that this would turn out anything but bad. “You don’t know that, don’t know what a beating like this can do to a body…and a soul.”

  “I’m sorry.” Her face was white, her lush lips compressed into a tight line. “I didn’t mean to overstep.”

  Rafael grimaced. What was it about this woman that had him making an ass of himself in front of her again and again? Sure, her money and status rubbed him the wrong way, but she’d been nothing but kind to Diego.

  “You didn’t. I’m just prickly.”

  A little of the tension left her body at his words. “You have every right to be. This is hard stuff you’ve got going on right now. Who wouldn’t be a little freaked out?”

  “Diego’s special.” He faced the wall behind the youth’s bed, unable to look at Vivian. “I mean, all the kids at the center are special in their own way. I’ve been working with them, watching them grow, for seven years now—ever since I started the place. But every once in a while a kid comes along who just has the whole package. Smart, funny, compassionate.

  “Diego has all that and more despite everything that’s happened to him. He just needs a little help.”

  “You’re giving him that help.”

  “I don’t know about that. It sure as hell doesn’t look like I’m helping.”

  “Of course it does.” She scooted her chair closer, laid a hand just above his knee. “He worships you—I knew that within five minutes of meeting him. And a kid like Diego doesn’t give his loyalty to someone who doesn’t deserve it.”

  “Sometimes the world sucks, you know that? It just sucks.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  Her quick, heartfelt agreement surprised him, had him turning to look at her. She was closer than he thought, so close that he could smell the sweet, dulce de leche smell of her. So close that he could see the silver flecks in her purple eyes.

  So close that when she took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, he could feel it.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d let a woman get this close to him for anything other than sex.

  Something shifted between them at the thought, and he found himself really looking at Vivian for the first time. She appeared tired, worn-out, even a little frightened.

  He didn’t like seeing her like that, much preferred it when she was matching him taunt for taunt. Reaching out, he traced a gentle finger over the worry lines between her eyes.

  She jumped, drew in a startled breath, but she didn’t jerk away, didn’t tell him to keep his hands to himself. Suddenly he wanted, very badly, to kiss her.

  “Rafael.” It was his turn to jump, and he turned to find Marie Lopez, the woman who ran his dining hall, standing at the door.

  Pulling away from Vivian, he crossed the room, while wondering what the hell had gotten into him.

  “Hey, Marie. I’m glad you came.” He leaned down so she could hug him, as she did so many of the kids at the center. She was an older woman, in her late fifties, yet the kids related to her. Loved her, just as she loved them.

  “I came as soon as I heard.” She clung to him for a second, then went over to the bed and ran a tender hand over Diego’s battered face. “How is he?”

  “Not good.” He told her the details the doctor had relayed to them, watching Marie’s face grow sadder and sadder with each revelation.

  When he finished his recitation, she cursed roundly and with a no-holds-barred attitude that had Rafael blinking. He couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth, as she was usually the one at the center demanding that the kids watch what they said.

  When she finally paused to take a breath, he said, “Jesus, Marie. Where did you learn to talk like that?”

  Her look was disgusted. “Where do you think? I’ve listened to you and the kids for how long now?”

  “Seven years.”

  “Exactly!”

  He smiled gently. “Thanks for coming.”

  “Where else would I be?” She glanced at Diego. “I’m done with this, Rafael. I’m so done with this senseless violence. What’s wrong with these kids today?”

  “This wasn’t Diego’s fault!” Vivian said, her voice indignant as she turned on Marie like an angry she-cat.

  The woman didn’t back down, simply glared at Vivian and gave as good as she got. “I never said it was. Who are you, anyway? I’ve never seen you before.” Her expression said she wasn’t impressed.

  Vivian stiffened, her eyes narrowing in a way that surprised him. “I’m—”

  “This is Vivian Wentworth. She’s Diego’s lawyer.”

  Marie didn’t drop her gaze. “Are you any good?” she asked with a sniff of disdain.

  “Marie!”

  “Yes, I am,” Vivian answered. “I’m very good.”

  “You don’t look it.”

  Rafael felt his jaw tighten in discomfort at Marie’s easy dismissal of Vivian, especially since it so closely mirrored his own original reaction. He’d felt justified at the time, but watching the same scene play out again, he couldn’t help feeling ashamed of his behavior.

  “It’s nearly midnight.” Marie turned toward him. “You should head back to Helping Hands, shut it down for the night. Shawna and Jake are holding the fort, but they have class in the morning.” The two interns were working on their master’s degrees in psychology and had been a godsend to the center for the past few months.

  “I don’t want to leave Diego alone—”

  “I’ll sit with him tonight. You look exhausted, and mad as hell. Go stretch your legs a little, get some sleep.” She glanced behind her at Diego. “We’ll see you in the morning.”

  Before he knew exactly what had happened, Rafael found himself outside of the hospital, staring at his bike. Vivian was beside him and, judging from her face, she was as exhausted as he felt. “Do you want me to drop you home?”

  “My car’s at the center.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right.” He handed her her helmet. “Let’s go then.”

  He took it slow, nothing like the headlong rush to the hospital a few hours earlier. But with every mile that passed, he grew more and more aware of Vivian’s soft breasts pressed against his back. They’d rushed out of the center without their coats, and the temperature had steadily dropped in the time they’d been at the hospital. She was shivering a little, and when he took a corner a little faster than he should have, she tightened her arms around him until they were pressed tightly together.

  Her could feel her nipples through the thin silk of her shirt, the thin cotton of his, and couldn’t help the rush of blood to his dick. His groan was lost in the wind rushing by them, and he tried to tell himself his reaction was just stress. Just worry. That it was everything and anything but the fact that he enjoyed the feel of Vivian’s arms around him.

  Yet he continued to take the curves a little too fast, sped up and weaved around a few cars just to feel her arms tighten around his waist. To feel her press herself more firmly against him.

  Goddamn it, what was with him and rich girls with innocent eyes and blackened hearts? God knew after what had happened with Jacquelyn he should have been cured of the obsession. Hell, before Vivian came along he would have sworn he was completely inoculated. And yet here he was, totally turned on and desperate to bury himself inside Vivian, even though he didn’t want to trust her—or anyone else who wasn’t family.

  But the fact of the matter was, after their conversation in Diego’s room, everything inside of him was screaming that she was different. That she was better. Of course, that’s what he’d thought about Jacquelyn all those years before, and the only
thing trusting her had gotten him was five years behind bars for a rape that had never happened.

  The years he’d spent in prison had broken his mama’s heart—and had nearly broken him as well. Every time his parents or siblings visited him, it had grown harder and harder to look them in the eye, until he’d started telling them not to come at all. Not surprisingly, they hadn’t listened, had kept coming every week for five long years.

  Despite Jacquelyn’s crazy accusations—designed to get her back in her father’s good graces after he’d caught her sleeping with the help—his family had believed him when he said he was innocent. When he’d finally got out of prison, he’d pledged to himself that he’d never get himself, or his family, stuck in that kind of nightmare again.

  Yet here he was, lusting after exactly the wrong kind of woman. Again. Was he ever going to learn?

  Rafael gunned the bike’s engine harder than necessary as he whipped into the alley behind the center. Vivian jumped a little behind him, and he ended up feeling like a heel. Just because he’d obviously lost his mind didn’t mean he needed to take it out on her.

  Pulling the bike to a stop beside the back door of Helping Hands, he waited for her to unpeel herself from around him before he climbed off the bike. “Come on,” he said, heading inside without glancing her way. “I’ll let you into my office to get your briefcase and coat.”

  “Thanks.”

  As they walked inside, he did his best to pretend she wasn’t there. He knew himself too well, knew that the rage and sorrow and desperation he felt were a bad combination, and if he wasn’t careful he was going to end up doing something stupid. Like kissing Vivian when he should be putting as much distance between the two of them as possible.

  Rafael gritted his teeth as he neared his office. She was so close he could actually feel her behind him, her breath coming in soft little pulses against his shoulder.

  But it was just the stress, the worry over Diego that was making him nearly desperate for the feel of her in his arms. So what if he was attracted to her—he wasn’t an animal. He could handle it, ignore it. He sure as hell didn’t have to do anything about it. No matter how good she smelled.

  Or looked.

  Or sounded.

  He pushed open the door to his office and then stepped out of the way so she could pass, careful to stand far enough away that she didn’t have to touch him as she crossed the threshold. There was no sense in tempting fate, no matter how strong he thought his control was.

  She reappeared a few seconds later, with her briefcase in one hand and her coat in the other. “I’ll call you tomorrow—to see how Diego is.”

  He nodded, then glanced away, because what he really wanted to do was pull her into his arms and feel her warm, lush body pressed against his own. “Sure.”

  “I want you to contact me as soon as he wakes up,” she continued, completely oblivious to the sudden need he was trying so hard to hide. “I don’t want him questioned by the police unless we’re both there.”

  “All right.”

  “I’m serious, Rafael. He can’t talk to them unless I’m present. I know he’s the victim and they’ll tell you they only want to find out who did this to him, but I’m telling you it’s a load of crap. I’ve been involved with enough domestic violence cases to know how easy it is to blame the victim.”

  “I got it.” He made the mistake of looking at her, and his need for her kicked up another notch—or five.

  Clenching his fists, fighting the ridiculous attraction for all it was worth, he headed toward the door at a near run. “As soon as the police show up, I’ll call you,” he promised.

  “Good. And—”

  “And don’t let them anywhere near Diego until you get there.”

  She studied him for a moment, her eyes moving over him as if she was searching for something specific. He tried to keep the hard-ass look in place, not wanting her to know how much he desired her.

  But she didn’t say anything else, simply nodded and waggled her fingers in a little wave before turning away and heading toward her car.

  He wanted to call her back, wanted to ask her to stay and just talk to him for a while. Wanted more than anything to pull her into his arms and kiss her until she made him forget what a truly terrible, messed-up day it had been.

  Which was exactly why he let her go.

  CHAPTER SIX

  VIVIAN CLIMBED INTO HER car with a sigh, but she didn’t start it right away, choosing instead to rest her head on the steering wheel as her confused emotions ran rampant.

  She was getting in too deep with Diego and with Rafael, caring too much about both of them, and she needed to put on the brakes. Diego was a client, she reminded herself, albeit a young one in desperate need of help. But still just a client. She needed to step back, be objective, not hurt so badly for him. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t be much use as his lawyer.

  Reason before emotion. The words of her favorite law school professor came back to her. You can feel as much compassion for a client as you want—after the trial—but keep it out of the courtroom, otherwise you’re doing both of you a disservice.

  It was a rule she’d lived by up until now. No matter how angry she was over what had happened to her pro bono clients, she kept her emotions out of it, at least until after they’d won in court.

  But she couldn’t do that with Diego when he was so lost and in so much trouble. Vivian’s sister had died years before—confused and alone—because no one had helped her when she needed it. Though the situations were different—Merry had been the victim, not the accused—something about Diego reminded her of her older sister. Like Merry, he was innocent, without guile, and like Merry, he was being punished for it.

  Vivian had been too young to save her sister from her abusive marriage, but she wasn’t a kid anymore. She would not see Diego suffer any more than he already had simply because the people in control didn’t believe him. She wouldn’t turn her back on him the way her parents had turned their backs on Merry.

  She could do this, she told herself. Help Diego and find a way to regain her objectivity. Even as she told herself it was possible, a picture of Diego bruised and battered and broken rose in her mind, and she knew, for better or worse, that she wasn’t going to be stepping back anytime soon.

  If she ended up getting hurt because she couldn’t keep her distance, then that was nobody’s business but hers. She’d find a way to deal with it.

  As for Rafael…She banged her head on the steering wheel a couple of times. What was wrong with her that she was so attracted to him? A few kind words in a hospital room and suddenly she was willing to forget how ugly he’d been to her? She didn’t trust him and he sure as hell didn’t trust her, yet all she’d been able to think of on the ride home was cuddling as close to him as possible. She’d wanted to crawl around him, surround him, take away the pain she could feel in every tense muscle and see in every line on his face. It was ridiculous. He made her nervous—he was too big, too strong, too dominant for her. He wanted to control everything, when she was used to being the one in control.

  Admittedly, after watching her sister suffer at the hands of her smooth, handsome, well-built husband, Vivian was a lot more cautious than most women. She liked to play it safe, and though Rafael was a lot of things—sexy, smart, strangely compelling—he was not the least bit safe.

  The vulnerability he made her feel was proof of that. Lessons had started early at her house and she’d spent nearly thirty years learning how dangerous it was to leave herself emotionally exposed to someone else. There was no way she was going to voluntarily let Rafael in and hope he didn’t hurt her.

  Diego was a kid who couldn’t help himself, so she didn’t have a choice there. But Rafael was another story altogether and there was no way she could afford to go there.

  Her decision didn’t stop her libido from standing up and taking notice—something it hadn’t done in quite a while. Maybe it was his utter lack of interest in her appearance. Or his
prickly attitude and bad-ass looks that hid a heart that was much softer than he liked to admit. Or maybe—

  Who cared what it was that attracted her? The point was she needed to get over it, to put it behind her so she could have some peace of mind. Barring that, she needed to ignore it so that she could do her job. Getting involved with her client’s guardian was an obvious conflict of interest.

  But she could still see how he’d looked before she left—bereft, lonely, a little out of his depth. Kind of how she felt right now. No, she thought with a sigh, that was exactly how she felt.

  Suddenly, all her arguments didn’t matter. She fumbled with the door handle, climbed out of the car and ran across the alley to the center as the frigid wind whipped around her. She didn’t know what she was expecting to happen, only that she didn’t want to go home to her lonely apartment.

  Slipping through the still unlocked door, she started down the dim hallway, unsure of where to begin looking for him. A quick glance in his office revealed that it was empty, and she began to head upstairs to see if he was in one of the classrooms he and Diego and been renovating.

  At the last minute, though, she changed her mind and padded into the big rec room at the front of the center. As soon as she entered, she spotted him sitting on the couch near the brightly decorated Christmas tree. The lights were still on, flashing and sparkling in all their multicolored glory. They looked incongruous playing over Rafael’s dark hair and clothes as he sat staring at the floor, elbows on knees, hands buried in his too-long hair. As if none of the joy in the room had managed to touch him.

  “What are you still doing here?” He didn’t glance up.

  “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “This thing with Diego—it would shake up anyone.”

  “It’s late, Vivian. Go home.”

  “I’m planning to. I want…”

  “What do you want?” He did look at her then, his black eyes gleaming in the soft light. “What the hell do you want from me?”