Because he had become slightly neurotic. He knew he couldn’t control a lot of things in the world, in his life, but he could control his personal environment. He could wrestle order and tranquility into this apartment.
"I’m a neat freak. I’m man enough to admit that. And it’s something that you need to think about – whether or not you can live with that." He meant that literally. He wanted her to live with him. "And I’m rethinking my plans because I’m hoping that I’m going to have to accommodate a nursery."
Her head turned sharply back to him.
Damn, that wasn’t right. He had meant to start with her, tell her how he loved her, propose to her. Then discuss living together, the baby, eloping over the weekend.
But he was feeling a little sick, and it wasn’t the chicken. He wanted these changes. He wanted Mandy. But he was terrified she’d say no. Terrified she’d say yes.
God knew he didn’t want to hurt her, and he didn’t want to make the same mistakes he’d made the first time with Jessica.
Mandy stared at Damien, searching his face for something, anything that would reveal to her what he was really saying. He had a way of putting out words that masked what was really going on underneath.
He wanted to build a nursery in his apartment. Did that mean marriage? Living together? A guest room for her baby when she came over to visit Uncle Damien?
Heart pounding, she was about to ask when her cell phone rang in her purse. She had been hauling her purse around to freshen up her makeup when Damien showed her the bathroom. She absently glanced down toward the sound.
"Let it ring." His voice was urgent, harsh almost.
"It might be my mother. Or Ben. Just let me check." Mandy pawed through her purse and pulled the phone out. It was the number to the apartment flashing. She answered it, not sure what her roommates could possibly want since they knew she was out with Damien.
"Hello?"
"Mandy, this is us." It was Caroline’s voice, so Mandy wasn’t sure what the us entailed. All of her roommates, she had to assume.
"Hi, Caroline. Listen, I’m a bit busy. Can I ring you later?"
Damien was giving her a most frightful scowl.
"No! Just listen to me. I have to tell you something about Damien… Honey, this will come as a shock I know, but you need to know this."
Mandy was only half listening, waiting for that moment when she could interrupt Caroline to tell her it would have to wait.
"Damien’s wife was killed. Murdered."
Mandy turned toward the window, startled. "I know that, Caroline. But how do you know that?"
"I read it on the Internet in the Chicago Tribune’s articles. Damien was charged with killing her. The cops were certain he did it, but the grand jury didn’t indict him."
Mandy almost dropped the phone. Damien had been arrested? Good God. She felt a hot flush start up her neck. "Why are you telling me this?"
"So you can get yourself away from him. Just go to the rest room and sneak out the front door of the restaurant. You don’t want to be involved with a man like this." Caroline’s voice was urgent.
Mandy swallowed hard, her heart aching. "I’m with Damien at his apartment right now. I’ll talk to you later." She hung up the phone.
Jamie shook her head at Caroline, who looked as flustered as she’d ever seen her. "That was not a good thing to do for a lot of reasons."
Allison tucked her hair behind her ear impatiently. "What did she say? Was she horrified? What restaurant is she at? We’ll go pick her up."
Caroline bit her lip, another gesture that indicated extreme agitation. Caroline didn’t have bad habits. She froze bad habits with the force of her will.
"She’s not at a restaurant. She’s at Damien’s apartment."
Jamie clapped her hand over her mouth. "Caroline! She’s at his apartment and you told her that he’s a murderer?"
"Well, I didn’t know when I told her!" Caroline’s cheeks flushed an angry red.
"Okay, this could be bad." Allison’s long legs ate up the living room as she paced back and forth. "What did Mandy say?"
"Nothing. She just hung up on me."
"Well, she must not think he did it. And she knows him better than we do. She’s probably right." Jamie looked at both of them. "Right?" She didn’t want to think that the man who’d shown such interest, such concern for Mandy could be a cold-blooded murderer. "They didn’t indict him, after all."
"Because they didn’t have any evidence, not because he didn’t do it!" Caroline dropped the phone on the couch. "Damn, I’ve made a mess out of this. What if she confronts him and he… does something to her?"
Jamie didn’t think that was likely, really, she was sure he wouldn’t. But what if he did?
"Oh, shoot. We have to call her back!"
Mandy’s phone rang again as she sat heavily down on Damien’s bed. A glance at it showed it was Caroline again. She turned it to vibrate and ignored it.
Damien was staring at her. "What’s the matter? You look all flushed. Is talking about a nursery here too soon? Am I rushing you?"
"Why didn’t you tell me?" she whispered, though she supposed she knew the answer. It was something of a miracle that Damien had shared with her what he had. But she wished she had known the full truth about Jessica right from the start, because it explained so much.
"Tell you what?" A cautiousness slid over his face.
"That you were arrested for killing Jessica."
Shock sprang into his eyes. "Who the hell told you that?"
"Caroline. Just now. Apparently she saw a newspaper article."
He turned away from her, paced the room, voice bitter. "And do you think I did it?"
That startled her. "No. Of course not. Absolutely not! But why didn’t you tell me when you talked about Jessica last night? It must have been so painful for you… so horrible to be accused like that."
She could only scratch the surface of imaginings of what he had been through. He had loved his wife. She had been killed, after they’d argued. And then in that intense, soul-shattering grief, he had been arrested for doing such a heinous act.
His thumb twitched, but he stopped walking. "Horrible? Oh, yeah, it was horrible. That’s why I didn’t tell you, Mandy. How do I find the words to tell you that the cops thought I followed my wife, angry that she’d spent too much money, angry that she flirted with other men, and I raped her, and closed my fingers around her neck and squeezed the life out of her?"