Miracle On 5th Avenue (From Manhattan with Love 3)

“Why didn’t you?” It puzzled her. “She adores you. Why would you hide from her?”

“It’s more that I’m hiding from her uncontrollable urge to interfere and fix my life.”

“She does that because she loves you.” Eva felt a pang of envy. “She cares so much.”

“Maybe, but it doesn’t make it less exasperating.”

He dismissed family with the ease of someone who took it for granted. What wouldn’t she give to have someone interfere and try to fix her life? To call and check she was all right. To worry that she was working too hard and not eating properly.

She blinked rapidly.

She should probably leave. He didn’t want her here, did he? It was obvious that this wasn’t a man remotely interested in decorating for Christmas.

Now that the lights had been switched on, she was able to take a proper look around her. The apartment was beautiful, but the decor was impersonal. It felt more like an exclusive hotel than a home, as if someone had moved in and forgotten to add any personal touches.

The space was incredible but it had no soul. No character. There were no clues about the person who lived there. It was hard to believe anyone had ever sat on the sofas, or put glasses or cups down on the smooth glass table. The place seemed almost abandoned, as if Lucas had forgotten it existed.

She wanted to add flowers and cushions. She wanted to drop a few items of clothing around the place to soften it and make it seemed lived in.

Where had he been when she’d entered the apartment? Upstairs in one of the bedrooms? In his study?

For the first time since she’d been flattened underneath him, she took a serious look at his face and saw things she’d failed to notice the first time. She saw the shadows under his eyes that suggested he hadn’t slept for weeks. The lines of tension that bracketed his firm mouth.

She looked away and something else caught her eye. A sharp knife, the long blade gleaming under the lights. Had they been standing in the kitchen its presence wouldn’t have drawn a second glance, but they weren’t in the kitchen.

She stared at it uneasily.

There was something unsettling, almost menacing, about that knife.

She contemplated all the possible reasons he might have for leaving it lying on the table. Maybe he used it for opening the mail. Except that she’d already noticed a towering stack of unopened letters.

No matter how much she racked her brain, alternative suggestions eluded her.

The blade taunted her and unease turned to alarm. She wasn’t experienced at solving mysteries, but she could read clues as well as the next person. He had a knife in the living room and he was here alone, cut off from the outside world.

Christmas made some people desperate, didn’t it?

She glanced at the bare floors and walls. “Did you just move in?”

“I’ve lived here for three years.”

Three years. Had he been living here when his wife died? No. The place showed no sign of a woman’s hand, which meant he must have moved in immediately after his wife had died.

He’d been escaping. Running. And he was still running.

The place looked as if he’d jumped straight from that life into this one and brought nothing with him.

Her heart ached for him.

She tried telling herself his life was none of her business. She’d been employed to fix his apartment, not fix his life, and he’d made it clear how much he hated interference. The sensible thing was to leave right now, but if she left, he’d be alone and who knew what he might do? What if he picked up that knife? She was the only person who knew the truth. That Lucas Blade wasn’t on a writing retreat in Vermont. He was holed up here in his apartment, alone.

If he did something, she’d feel responsible. She’d always wonder if she could have stopped it. Made a difference.

Her gaze met the fierce black of his and she knew she wasn’t looking at a man who was dangerous. She was looking at a man who was desperate. Right on the edge. Holding it together by a thread.

Lucas Blade might write about horror, but she suspected that right now nothing matched the horror of his own life.

And there was no way she was leaving him alone.