Triple Dare

She was sure of it when he clipped a silent, almost resigned nod before spinning around and heading down the hall.

Bemused, she stepped out after him.

Two things struck her as Darian turned into the kitchen area instead of heading to the front door. One, he’d agreed to let her help, and two, he knew the layout of her apartment. Abby forced her racing pulse to slow. Yes, the man was gorgeous and, yes, she’d now lay odds he either lived in an identical apartment upstairs or knew someone who did. But even if that friend wasn’t a woman, it didn’t mean he was dating material. Not for her. She’d sworn off men after her fiasco of a breakup with Stuart. The only reason she’d returned to New York was to strengthen her bond with Brian. She certainly wasn’t here to get involved again, especially with a man as strange as this one, with even stranger hobbies.

Her resolve restored, Abby hooked her arm into one of the padded barstools at the breakfast counter and followed Darian into the kitchen proper. She dumped the brass stool beside the sink. The lingerie she’d inadvertently brought along went straight into the trash compactor. She threw the switch for good measure before retrieving her first-aid kit from the nest of kitchen utensils still cradling it at the top of the closest box. By the time she turned, her reluctant patient was leaning against the opposite counter, his dark, disconcerting gaze tracking her every move.

He shifted his stare to the still-chumming compactor for a brief, pointed moment, then drew it back to her.

No way. She’d let the man into her kitchen. He was not getting into her head, let alone her foolish heart. She glanced at the stool and shrugged. “You’re a giant. I’m not. I can’t reach.” He was six-two at least. At five-seven she was at a serious disadvantage if that cut was near his temple.

Her earlier suspicions regarding the man’s aversion to chit-chat were cemented as he crossed the modest galley kitchen and lowered his frame onto the stool, all without speaking. Or perhaps he’d been small-talked to death at whatever function he’d donned that tux for. She stuck out her hand, hoping to determine which. He simply stared. She redoubled her efforts, extending a genuine smile along with her hand. “Abigail Pembroke. My friends call me Abby. Given your hobby, I’m guessing yours call you Dare.”

He didn’t return her smile.

She must have shamed him into observing one of the tenets of etiquette, however, because his hand finally rose, slowly enveloping hers. His grip was warm and solid. His stare enveloped her as well.

“Dare will do…Abby.”

Oh, Lordy. The mellow note had returned to his voice, once again causing the strings of interest to vibrate deep within her belly. She muted them quickly and tugged her hand from his grasp, turning to the sink to scrub the lingering heat from her fingers along with the dust from her boxes. Fortunately, Mrs. Laurens had left a bottle of liquid soap behind and Abby used that to help with the sterilizing part of her efforts. Abby caught the rustle of fabric as she reached for the last of the paper towels the elderly woman had left as well. Dare had obviously decided to remove the jacket to his tux. By the time she returned to that steady gaze and surprisingly still-snowy shirt, her nerves were firmly under control.

Or so she’d thought.

Sweet mercy. She stared. Shamelessly.

Two weeks ago and forty feet away, the man’s chest had been ogle-worthy. Tonight, less than twelve inches away, it was downright riveting. The slightly crushed cotton of Dare’s shirt enhanced every inch of his broad shoulders, thick, sinewy arms and fiercely honed chest—right down to the silk cummerbund banded about his waist. She followed the line of studs back to his loosened tie and the tantalizing V of flesh at the base of his throat. Flesh that still bore the slight sheen of his unorthodox exertion.

And his scent.

This close, it was impossible to evade. Not that she wanted to. Abby savored the earthy musk drifting into her lungs. No ripe, commercial colognes for this man. Dare’s natural scent reflected his looks—dark and dangerous. Her second, slower whiff clogged in the middle of her throat as he cleared his. Expectantly.

She blushed.

Great. The man peeped into her window and she ended up pegged as the pervert. She purged his musk from her lungs along with her embarrassment, focusing instead on that sluggish, scarlet trickle as she stepped closer. Most of the blood appeared to have been soaked up by the dark waves that spilled past his right temple. She dumped the first-aid kit on the counter and smoothed the hair from his face.

He must have prepped himself better this time, because he managed to keep from stiffening.

She couldn’t. “Oh my.”

His brow lifted. The motion caused several fresh drops of blood to seep from the two-inch gash she’d located just past his temple. She wasn’t a doctor, but even she knew the cut required more than a Band-Aid.

“You need stitches.”

Unlike earlier in her bedroom, he offered no argument. Nor did he downplay her assessment. He simply shook his head.

Firmly.

Abby studied the thin scar running the length of his outer right cheek and jaw, the one on his bottom lip. Neither showed evidence of stitches. She wouldn’t be able to change his mind, then. Might as well do what she could. Popping open the first-aid kit, she rummaged through her meager supplies, culling a bottle of antibacterial wash, half a dozen squares of sterile gauze and her stash of slim butterfly bandages. She washed the gash as best she could, then used all seven of the butterfly strips to seal the slightly jagged edges together. Satisfied the strips would hold, she dampened the remaining squares of gauze with the antiseptic wash, then used the pads to clean the remaining blood from Dare’s cheek.

The end result was surprisingly neat.

“There.” She pitched the last of the gauze on the counter as he lifted his fingers to probe his cut.

Bandaged or not, that gash had to hurt.

She nodded to her kit. “I’m sorry. There should be a packet of ibuprofen in there but it’s gone. I must have used it up before I moved.”

“That’s okay. You’ve done enough as it is. I appreciate all your help…and your concern.”

She glanced at her watch as he stood, stunned as she realized he’d been there for nearly half an hour. It had felt like five minutes, ten tops. Even more disconcerting was that she was reluctant to see him go. She risked a teasing smile as he pushed the stool against the counter. “Glad to help. Just promise you’ll take the elevator, okay? I’m out of bandages.”

His lips actually quirked, then eased into a slow, mesmerizing smile. Somewhere along the way, she stopped breathing. She’d forgotten how.

She had the distinct impression Dare knew it.

To her disappointment, his smile faded. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it. The haunted look that had struck her so deeply when she’d first spotted it in the doorway of her bedroom returned. His gaze seemed almost guarded now. He seemed guarded—against her. But that didn’t make sense. What reason did he have to be threatened by her? They hadn’t even met until tonight. Not really. Was it his head? Did it hurt worse than he’d said?

It must. Not only had his mood shifted, she could almost feel the energy draining out of him. He’d paled, too. “Look, why don’t you sit back down?” She tipped her chin toward the breakfast counter and the forest of cardboard still cluttering the living room beyond. “It shouldn’t take me more than a few minutes to locate the rest of my medical supplies. There’s bound to be a bottle of ibuprofen in the mix.”

“Thank you, but no. I have somewhere I need to be.”

At this hour?

She swallowed her disbelief. Nutcase or not, she did not want the man leaving until she was sure he wouldn’t pass out in the elevator—whether he was headed the one floor up or seventeen down. She tried teasing again. “Let me guess, you turn into a pumpkin at midnight.”

This time, his lips didn’t quirk. If anything, he became more guarded. “Something like that.”

Disappointment seared in—so swiftly, she was forced to admit she was attracted to the man. But even if he was attracted to her, time limits meant only one thing. A woman. Wherever his apartment was located, there was a woman waiting inside it. Girlfriend, fiancé, wife—it didn’t matter. She had no intention of playing second fiddle to anyone or anything ever again. Abby held fast to her resolve as Dare retrieved his jacket. She followed him out of the kitchen and around the boxes she had no idea how she was going to get rid of once they were empty and joined him in the apartment’s tiny foyer. She unlocked both security bolts and opened the door.

Dare stepped into the dimly lit hall—and hesitated.

To her surprise, he turned back.

That haunted looked was not a figment of her imagination. It was real and it had returned. But damned if she could figure out what was causing it, much less the resignation that had crept in as well. Dare retrieved an ivory-colored business card from the inner pocket of his tux and held it out. “Put the boxes in the hall when you finish unpacking. Then call and leave a message on my machine. I’ll have them removed.”

She reached out, instinctively taking the card and skimming it. Two lines in, she stopped. Forced herself to reread. Not the phone number…the address. Dare lived upstairs all right. All the way up. She snapped her gaze to his, not even bothering to disguise the fury blistering in.

“You live in the penthouse?”

The haunting in his eyes intensified.

She didn’t care. She no longer wondered what was behind it, either. She was too busy absorbing the shock. Two days after Greta Laurens had offered to sell her the apartment—and the very morning after she’d brought her brother by to make sure Brian also loved it—an unnamed resident had decided to exercise an obscure clause in Tristan Court’s antiquated homeowners’ agreement, one originally scripted by blue bloods at the turn of the century to keep so-called common folk from buying in. Abby received a formal, humiliating summons to appear before the building’s residents’ board, ostensibly to determine if she was suitable neighbor material. Though the board hadn’t come out and said it, she knew darn well the color of her blood hadn’t been the issue, but the genetic makeup of the rest of her cells.

Or rather, her brother’s.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

This man—who hadn’t even bothered to show up for that humiliating meeting—had instigated the entire, ugly mess. She didn’t care if Dare had withdrawn his reservations by the time the board met, she should have left him clinging to the side of their building where she’d found him. Unfortunately, it was too late to rectify her mistake now. She did the next best thing. She slammed the door in his face.

Chapter 2

Zeno Corza pocketed the compact binoculars he’d lifted from a pawnshop the night he’d hit town. Though his mark had already entered the apartment building, Zeno didn’t cross the darkened street. Nor did he retrieve his cell phone and call in. It wasn’t that he had nothing new to report.

He did.

But for all the boss’s big words and bigger ideas, the guy wouldn’t understand a change in plans, even a small one. He was too stuck on things going down his way. Well, the boss was also supposed to be big on results, too. Zeno was about to grab a couple of those. The brilliance of it was that he didn’t have to stick out his own hand. All he had to do was tap an old acquaintance on the shoulder. Remind a certain someone that in the end, everyone’s dirty little secrets leaked out.

Zeno clenched his fingers. The boss was wrong. He had brawn and brains.

Finesse.

Hell, after that fiasco in Chicago a couple of months ago, it wouldn’t be hard to prove. Especially since New York was Zeno Corza’s turf. Sure, he’d been busted while distributing his white-powder wares in the projects across town a couple years back—but he’d been smart enough to develop and then cash in a lucrative marker before his case even went to court, hadn’t he? Zeno craned his neck toward the upper floors of the Tristan, grinning as the bank of windows he’d spent the better part of the past few days casing lit up. Time to retrieve his cell phone. Put his new and improved mission into motion. Prove to the boss for once and for all he was ready to move up in the organization.

And if the boss was right and he didn’t have a way with words?

Well, there was always Sally.

Anticipation hummed in Zeno as he fingered the meticulously honed blade sheathed at the waist of his trousers. He’d named the old knife after the faithless bitch who’d once sworn to stick with him for life. In a way, she had. Part of her. After all these years, the blade’s wooden handle still carried the stain of Sally’s blood. Ironic when he thought about it.

That’s all the boss had ordered him to get this time.

A single drop of blood. The rest was his to amuse himself with. Another reason Zeno knew he was smart—he’d come up with a lot of ways to amuse himself over the years….

Abby gently hung her brother’s latest masterpiece on the wall and scrambled off the couch to admire the results of her handiwork. Not bad. The painting—a depiction of her new apartment building at sunset—was absolutely gorgeous.

She wasn’t surprised.

For all her brother’s difficulties with numbers and directions, Brian was an amazing impressionist. Tristan Court’s stately turn-of-the-century facade was awash in soft reds, warm golds and a soothing burnt orange. Brian had even sketched in the impression of the doorman with a few strategic strokes of dark gray, highlighted with white. The phone rang as Abby reached out to adjust the bottom of the frame. Sighing, she turned to thread through the empty cardboard boxes still cluttering her living room, wondering if her uptight upstairs neighbor would revise his opinion of her brother if she showed him the painting.

She knew the answer before she reached the kitchen counter. She’d spent years dealing with the prejudices of strangers regarding Down’s. Heck, getting to know Brian one-on-one for six months the year before hadn’t even put a dent in her ex’s carefully concealed, holier-than-thou bigotry.

And speak of the devil.

Abby glared at the name and number in her phone’s caller ID window. It was Stuart Van Heusen, in the flesh—or rather, in her ear. If she picked up. Abby spun around and waded back through the boxes to retrieve her hammer. By the fourth ring she was tempted to send the tool sailing across the room and onto the phone. Her own prerecorded voice kicked in on the fifth shrill, only to cut out in mid-hello as Stuart decided against leaving a message and hung up.

Smart move.

She’d yet to return his first three calls.

Frankly, she still couldn’t believe he’d had the nerve to show up at the concert hall that afternoon. Fortunately, she’d been onstage, halfway through rehearsal along with the other 105 members of the Philharmonic. By the time they’d finished, Stuart had given up and left. She’d been tempted to dial his cell number then, if only to tell him that the next time he stepped foot in her dressing room—assistant district attorney or not—she was going to have security escort him out. But then Marlena had arrived and her thoughts of Stuart had vanished as her friend practically bounded toward the stage.

At first Abby hadn’t been able to tell if Marlena was heading for the violin or cello section—much less why. A cellist with the Philharmonic, Marlena’s husband, Stephen, had taken Abby under his wing a decade ago when he learned the gangly new violinist had a twin with the same genetic condition as his infant son. But it was Marlena Abby had really bonded with. When Marlena and Stephen had decided to turn the upper floors of their apartment house into a group home for adults with Down’s, Abby had been thrilled. So much so that when her brother had confessed two years ago that he wanted to follow her to New York to study art at a special school, she’d persuaded their dad to let Brian move into the house.

But Brian hadn’t been doing well this past year. He’d taken their father’s heart attack and subsequent death especially hard. It was the main reason Abby had bowed out of a second year with the string quartet tour and come home instead. When Marlena waved to her, she’d assumed something had happed to her brother. Fortunately, other than a cracked tooth, Brian was fine. Marlena had already taken him to the dentist that morning. The reason Marlena had been so animated was the item she’d stumbled across while in the waiting room.

Abby laid the hammer on the coffee table, her gaze drawn to the dog-eared magazine in the center. Like her, Marlena rarely purchased Saucy. Still, she hadn’t been able to resist flipping through a free—though year-old—issue of the Cosmo-wanna-be rag. Marlena had stopped to chuckle over the feature “Snagging a Billionaire Bachelor,” only to learn that, according to Saucy, there were ten such men in the U.S. alone. Number two was none other than Darian Sabura, the very man who’d climbed through Abby’s window three days before!

Of all ten men, Dare was the only one who’d refused to be interviewed. Undaunted, the magazine had made up for the loss with a series of unauthorized photos, rumors and outright conjecture about Dare and his bachelor life. The raciest gossip concerned his parents. According to Saucy, the blood running through Dare’s veins was bluer than Tristan Court’s original residents combined, at least on his mother’s side. As to his father’s—evidently there’d been some speculation as to which man actually held that title. Especially when Dare’s mother, Miranda, retired to her country home at the start of her pregnancy and saw no one until Dare was nearly a year old. As Dare matured, the rumors faded…until a falling-out between Dare and his father added an entirely new set to the mill—and the hint of a deeper, darker scandal, as well.

One that again concerned Dare’s mother.

According to a police report Saucy had obtained from an unnamed homicide detective within the NYPD, Dare’s mother had either fallen or been pushed off a subway platform when Dare was fifteen…or had she simply lost her balance due to the effects of the contents of the silver flask found in her purse?

Neither the detective nor Saucy would say, no doubt for fear of a lawsuit.

Either way, Abby didn’t blame Dare for refusing to comment. Nor could she begrudge him the lifestyle he’d pursued since his mother’s death.

But his father apparently did.

Victor Sabura’s blood might run more toward an earthy red, but his legal brilliance and relentless work ethic had made up for it among most of New York’s wealthy upper crust. To Victor’s disappointment, his son didn’t appear to have inherited that same work ethic. Instead, Darian Sabura—aka Triple Dare, as he’d been dubbed by the extreme sports media—had spent his teens and early twenties honing skills more suited to recreational pursuits. Skiing, scuba, snowboarding, surfing, skydiving, auto racing, motocross, mountain climbing, Dare had mastered them all—in lieu of settling into a job. Any job.

Rumor had it Victor Sabura had washed his hands of his adrenaline-addicted son years before and never looked back. If Abby was smart, she’d follow suit.

Except…she couldn’t.

Saucy’s cameras might have been too far away to catch the shadows she’d seen in Dare’s eyes, but Abby hadn’t been. She could still see those dark emerald pools when she closed her eyes at night. She’d seen similar shadows darken her father’s stare after her mother died when she and Brian were nine. She’d seen them dim her own gaze the year before, the night she’d gone to meet her future mother-in-law, only to have her heart and her pride bruised beyond humiliation. The shadows were still there the day she’d run away to Europe. They still darkened her brother’s stare whenever they talked about their dad, letting her know Brian was still running from the man’s death.

What was Dare running from—his bloodline? His mother’s death?

Or something more?

And why did she care?

Abby told herself it was because Dare was her neighbor. One day he might be Brian’s neighbor. For that reason alone, she should at least make an attempt to—Abby flinched as the phone pierced her reverie for the fourth time that night. She didn’t bother checking the caller ID—she knew it was Stuart.

She snapped her gaze back to the magazine. To the envelope she’d used to mark the article on her new neighbor and his fellow billionaire bachelors. The envelope she’d been too chicken to deliver along with the man’s shoes. That settled it. Anything was preferable to sitting here and listening to that phone ring. Even heading upstairs.

Dare stared at the glass door to his shower, desperate for the promised surcease a mere pace and a half away. And yet, as utterly drained as he was, he also knew he wouldn’t be stepping inside. He couldn’t.

Abby.

Dare closed his eyes as her essence swirled up into the penthouse, mingling with his as it had so often this past month whenever she’d stopped by to check on the progress of the remodeling of her apartment below. Only this time, Abby was headed up along with it. He could feel her stepping into the stairwell at the eighteenth level and slowly ascending to his, her hesitance growing stronger with every step. Usually he needed to touch someone to read their emotions this deeply. That he could feel hers so strongly without physical contact still amazed him. It also had him wondering what it would be like to press his fingers to her flesh.

To truly touch her, inside and out.

Yes, Abby had tended to his latest wound in her kitchen three night ago. But his sense had been deliberately dulled at the time from the blessed numbing that came as a result of the adrenaline and the exertion of scaling a cliff or a mountain…or even a twenty-story turn-of-the-century apartment building without the aid and security of a rope. Had he known Abby would be moving into her place early, he still would have made the climb, though he’d have taken more care with his route. Specifically, he’d have chosen one that took him well around her bedroom window instead of straight through it.

Either way, the respite from the climb had lasted only so long. Which was why he’d left her apartment so abruptly.

By the time she’d finished her ministrations, his empathic sense had returned. He’d begun to feel the simmering emotions of those around him again, especially hers. Unfortunately, the endless procession of hands he’d been forced to shake at the party he’d recently left—and the utter onslaught of feeling that came with them—had left him drained. Vulnerable. So he’d retreated up here and into his shower, shielding himself behind the one and only material he’d discovered could completely block out the crushing emotions of the city, so long as he remained entirely encased within it.

Glass.

If he was smart, he would seek out that same respite now, before Abby recovered her resolve and knocked on his door. Before he felt compelled to answer it. Despite her need to right things between them, he was once again in no shape to greet the one woman who could affect him this deeply without even trying. Dare sighed as he tugged his T-shirt off and dumped the dark blue cotton at his feet.

The night he’d entered Abby’s window he’d caved in to his assistant’s pleas and spent the evening attending yet another of those excruciating torture sessions Charlotte liked to call a fund-raiser. Unfortunately, Charlotte was right; they were also necessary. The reason the two of them were so effective at their calling—that of locating and assisting the battered women of the city—was threefold. The first involved his skill at locating those who truly needed them, women who for whatever reason could or would not seek help through the police or the city’s more conventional programs and shelters. The second involved Charlotte’s determination to see to the details of creating an entirely new identity, preferably one as far removed from the old as possible. And the third consisted of his own unerring ability to greet the potential benefactors Charlotte introduced him to and immediately discern who possessed the financial means and the conscience to donate what was needed—as well as the ability and desire to keep his or her assistance quiet indefinitely.