by Zoë Archer
“I’ll get the espresso machine going.” He headed toward what she assumed was the kitchen, then stopped and held out his hand. He wanted her with him. The gesture would have touched her, but too many things were starting to feel wrong.
She shook her head. “I’ll just chill out here.”
He looked puzzled, but turned and disappeared into a galley kitchen. She could hear him moving around, opening the freezer and pulling out the coffee beans. His desk was tucked in a corner next to a street-facing window, and she walked to it quickly. Under the noise of the coffee grinder, Bianca opened the desk drawers. There were only the usual pens, paperclips and random junk anybody’s desk might hold. She found a stack of business cards with his name on them, but they were Spartan and listed only his name and his cell phone number. But there was another piece of paper with a column of letters and numbers written on it beside some dates. What did it mean?
She heard him start the espresso machine, which meant he’d be out of the kitchen in a second. She quickly closed the desk drawer, but not before grabbing the slip of paper and hiding it in her hand. “You want to hang here for a few minutes?” he asked, coming into the room. She scurried away from his desk and pretended to look at some of the photographs. “I don’t have anything to eat, and there’s a great 24-hour doughnut shop right around the corner. Makes awesome maple bars. I’ll just run out and grab us a couple.”
“Sure,” Bianca answered, her voice sounding far away while her heart ricocheted inside her chest. She clutched the paper and prayed he wouldn’t try and hold her hand again. Marius walked over to her, then tipped her chin up. It almost hurt for her to look at him, he was so handsome and she could have sworn she saw genuine affection and sincerity in his mist-colored eyes.
When he gently pressed a kiss to her mouth and whispered against them, “Soon,” she nearly felt tears start. She wanted to demand what the piece of paper meant, but that would reveal she’d been snooping. Instead, she turned away and didn’t watch him leave the apartment. As soon as she heard the door close behind him, she pulled out the paper and tried to figure out what it meant. Shipments? Of what? She didn’t like what her equation was figuring about Marius. He carried a knife. He wouldn’t talk about his work, even with the women in Pacific Heights. The Russian man at the party had thanked Marius for a shipment of something important, and then the phone call in the early morning hours of a holiday. Things about Marius were beginning to feel depressingly familiar. Please, she silently begged, scanning the paper with tired, desperate eyes, don’t let him be another shady character.
She heard the unmistakable sound of a police siren sounding out once in warning. She walked to the window and pulled back the sheer drapes with a shaking hand to look down into the street. Sure enough, there was a police cruiser parked in the middle of the street, its red and blue lights turning, its doors open. Bianca wondered where the officers were, but she didn’t have far to look. And when she spotted them, she felt herself grow brittle and cold.
The two officers had Marius bent over the hood of his car. One of them was frisking Marius, then pulled out a pair of handcuffs and started to cuff him, while Marius talked over his shoulder at the two officers, shaking his head.
Bianca let the curtain fall back. She grabbed her handbag and ran out of the apartment, taking the back stairs out so Marius wouldn’t see her leave.
As she flagged down a cab a few blocks away, she couldn’t stop the tears. Somehow, without trying, she’d done it again. Gotten involved with a criminal. But this time was so much worse than before. Marius had stolen her heart.
~~~
“Come on, Henderson,” one cop said to the other. “Nobody gets arrested for that.”
“Listen to your partner, Henderson,” Marius said over his shoulder.
“Quiet, perp,” snarled the junior officer. He started to handcuff Marius. “I graduated in the top third of my class, I know all the laws. If it’s on the books, it’s a real law. A law you just broke.”
“You have got to be kidding me.” Marius rolled his eyes. Perfect. In a city known for its tolerant, free-wheeling attitude, especially on New Year’s, Marius had the good fortune of being arrested by one of the most uptight cops in San Francisco. And for breaking a law he couldn’t believe actually existed. But, according to Officer Straightlaced, it really was a law.
Marius had started down the street when he saw his car still wearing its coat of Bianca’s lipstick. That makes two of us, he’d thought, smiling to himself and touching his mouth. As much as he wanted to immortalize the thing that had brought him and Bianca together, the tiny, unsentimental grease monkey in his brain wouldn’t let the lipstick stay. It could damage the paint of the car. And besides, he didn’t really want people asking about his advertised unimpressive package. It would only take a minute to wipe it off.
He had approached his car and reached into his pocket for his handkerchief. He had pulled out some fabric but noticed a half second later that what he’d pulled from his jacket wasn’t a pocket-square at all.
“What the hell?” he’d said aloud, looking at the scrap of red satin in his hands.
That’s when the police siren went off behind him, and he found himself being frisked against the hood of his car.
“Henderson,” the cop’s partner said now with enforced patience, “it’s New Year’s Day. The station is full of drunk and disorderlies, not to mention our usual assortment of hookers, thieves and pushers. You really going to bring this guy in? You want to explain this to the desk sergeant?”
“I’m doing my job, Martinez,” Henderson shot back defensively.
“Forget it,” his partner answered. “Bad enough to be working on New Year’s Day, but I will not be the laughing-stock of the station.” Marius felt the handcuffs come off, and he stood, rubbing his wrists. “Sorry about that, sir. My young partner is pretty…enthusiastic.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Marius answered. “It’s just part of a memorable evening.”
Martinez eyed the hood of the Volvo, still covered in lipstick. A corner of the officer’s mouth turned up. “Should I ask?”
“No, Officer,” said Marius.
The two cops got back into their cruiser and drove off, with Henderson grumbling that lawlessness would overtake the city in a matter of hours. Once they had gone, Marius finished the job of cleaning off the car, using his handkerchief. He then hurried quickly to the doughnut shop, bought two maple bars and a couple of buttermilk old fashioneds, and jogged back to his apartment. The espresso was probably ready, and Marius didn’t want to be apart from Bianca for longer than he had to. He was strangely glad they hadn’t leapt into bed right away. He didn’t want to mess things up between them by hurrying sex. She was a woman he wanted to have around for a long, long time.
But when he got back to his apartment, she was gone. Bianca had disappeared.
~~~
She felt awful. Bianca watched the diners in the restaurant from behind the service window, her eyes bleary and sticky with a combination of exhaustion and sadness. Turning from the customers drinking spumante and toasting the New Year, Bianca forced herself to concentrate on preparing the cotechino con lenticchie, the traditional dish of lentils and sausage. The food was supposed to represent abundance and wealth for the coming year. Her wallet may have been in good shape, but Bianca didn’t feel abundant with anything except unhappiness. She’d barely been able to get herself home, shower, change into her kitchen whites, and hop the Muni train to get to work. All morning and into the afternoon, she’d been dragging herself around, hardly able to talk, cooking by rote and keeping her head down.
She tried to blame it on her lack of sleep, but knew that wasn’t the case at all. It was Marius. Somehow, in the course of one night, she’d fallen hard for him—he seemed so right for her in every way—which made the discovery of his criminal activity all the more devastating.
It was a lousy way to start the new year.
Bianca stood over her
workspace, mindlessly chopping a pile of greens, when she heard Hector, the lead prep guy, at her shoulder.
“You’ve got a visitor, B.”
Bianca looked up and saw Marius’ gorgeous face on the other side of the service window. Her mouth went dry and hands felt stiff and clumsy. She clutched her knife and stared at Marius. Bleary, unshaven, his clothes rumpled, he looked a little wild and more than a bit dangerous. Even scruffy and dangerous, he was still the hottest guy ever.
“I didn’t feel like maple bars,” she said.
“And that’s why you took off?” he countered. “Don’t think so. Let’s talk. In private,” he added, looking over her shoulder at the entire kitchen staff, who’d all stopped working to gawk at him and Bianca.
She shook her head. “That’s not a good idea.”
His smile wasn’t exactly comforting. “You want your coworkers to see these?” He held up his hand and uncurled his fingers, revealing a small bundle of red shiny fabric.
Bianca dropped her knife, then reached out and grabbed what Marius was holding, quickly stuffing it into her pocket. Her face matched the color of the fabric. She dashed out of the kitchen, took Marius by the arm, and led him to a quiet corner by the wine rack. Somehow, she’d almost forgotten how large he was, much larger than her, and his masculine presence nearly overwhelming. And he seemed pissed off. Not good.
“How’d you get away from the cops?” She wondered if she’d see him on the news that night, maybe footage of a high-speed chase, though she didn’t hear any sirens now.
A muscle tightened in his jaw. “You saw that, and that’s when you hit the road?”
Bianca stepped away from him, crossing her arms over her chest. “So, what is it? Pirated DVDs? Drugs? Don’t think I haven’t heard it all.”
“Your panties.”
Her eyes flew up to meet his. “What?”
“It’s illegal in San Francisco to clean your car with a used pair of underwear. I learned that this morning. The cops let me go with a warning.”
“Oh, God,” Bianca rasped. “I put them in your pocket when we were interrupted in the pantry. But, wait…you aren’t a drug dealer?”
“I don’t even take aspirin.” He stared at her. “That’s why you left? You thought I was some kind of criminal?”
Bianca felt dizzy. “Most of the guys I’ve dated lately turn out to be petty crooks. Everything would seem great, and then I’d get phone calls asking me to post their bail.”
“I’ve already said that I’m not most guys,” he pointed out.
“I don’t even know you.”
He looked disappointed. “Yeah, you do, Bianca. I told you stuff about myself I’ve never told anybody else.”
“Except what you do for a living, and, oh, yeah, why Russian guys thank you for getting them out of tight spots, why you carry a knife, who calls you at six in the morning on New Year’s Day. And this.” She took a piece of paper from her pocket and showed it to him.
He scanned it, then looked annoyed. “Serial numbers for motorcycle parts and their delivery dates. You took this from my desk.”
She felt her face go hot again, but she wouldn’t back down. “I needed to know, Marius. If you were like the others.”
He dragged his hands through his short hair, making it stand on end. “God, Bianca, I’m the furthest thing from a mobster. My line is importing and exporting motorcycles. Pro racing circuit and collectors. Yuri was thanking me for getting his racer the right parts before an important event. I know him through my mom, who’s Russian.”
“And the phone call?”
“A warehouse in Japan. They’re seventeen hours ahead of us. You want to know why I don’t talk about my job? Because I make a lot of money at it. I’m not crazy about gold diggers, and I meet a lot of them. Like those women in Pacific Heights.”
Understanding hit her like a sack full of oranges. “Ah, crap.” She slid down to the floor, her legs out in front of her. “Marius, I screwed up. I should have said something instead of running away. I’m…sorry.”
He crouched down next to her and picked up her limp hand, a rueful smile touching his face. “I probably could’ve been a little more open, too.”
She felt like the biggest chump on the planet, then realized something. “My phone’s unlisted. And I never told you the name of this restaurant. How’d you find me?”
Marius’ smile was half sheepish, half proud. “Nobody was answering their phones, so I went to every good Italian restaurant in the city to see which ones were open.”
Bianca couldn’t help it. She gaped. “That’s…like…a hundred restaurants. More.”
“This place is number sixty seven.”
She was floored. As far as grand gestures went, Marius’ not only took the cake, it sliced it and served it with ice cream. No man had ever undertaken a quest for her. Bianca looked from their interlaced fingers up to his face, and saw apprehension there. He didn’t know how she would respond to his search after she’d vanished without a word. He was much braver than she had been.
All the exhaustion she’d been feeling disappeared in an instant as she launched herself at him. Throwing her arms around him, she kissed Marius with all the pent-up hunger and happiness she felt rocketing through her. He clearly hadn’t been expecting such an enthusiastic response, and they both tumbled to the floor, her on top of him.
A waiter, stopping by to grab a bottle of wine, saw them on the ground together and promptly started applauding. The rest of the kitchen staff and servers came over and did the same, until Bianca shot them all a scowl and her co-workers all hurried back to their stations. Marius helped her to her feet.
“Maybe I’ll return your panties to you more often,” he laughed.
“Get used to seeing them on your bedroom floor.”
He smiled wickedly and kissed her neck. “That’s better than the Persian rug there now. Much better. But maybe I should repaint, since red doesn’t really go with the color scheme.”
She was having a hard time thinking about anything but the feel of his mouth on her and the crazy joy shooting inside her like holiday fireworks. “I don’t always wear red underwear—they’re supposed to bring good luck for the New Year. Italian tradition.”
“They worked.”
Arms around each other, they kissed deeply, neither of them hearing the shouts of the diners and waiters as everyone toasted, “Buon anno!”
~~~
California - It is illegal in San Francisco to clean your car with used underwear.
Purrfect Companion
Amber Dawn Bell
England, 1715
Arrested?
For her pet’s lewd behavior? Preposterous!
This had to be a bad dream. A very bad dream. The only thing keeping Angelique firmly planted in reality was the fact she was currently being escorted through the gardens by two guards like a common criminal.
After entering the lush palace, the guards led Angelique to a room off the main hall. One motioned her to sit in the single chair that graced the tiny chamber while the other departed without a further word. She complied and placed Lancelot upon her lap. He curled up and began to purr as if nothing had happened. Aggravation burned deep within her. She’d known better than to bring Lancelot, but she hadn’t been able to bear being without him. Unable to hold back her frustration any longer, she thumped him soundly on the ear.
Ouch. What was that for? Lancelot twisted his head and glared at her.
I asked you to behave, and you couldn’t even control yourself for one minute. You just had to chase after that ridiculous fluff ball of a cat—and now look where we are! She thumped him again for good measure. Lancelot flinched and folded his ears back against his head.
I get the point. Now cease your abuse. How was I to know the king had a law against me tupping a royal cat? She was quite the tasty little morsel, don’t you agree? Lancelot’s tongue whipped out of his mouth, smoothing over his upper lip. Besides, she was ripe for the plucking, and
I do believe she rather enjoyed herself, thank you. He flicked his tail in short, jerky movements.
Angelique looked cautiously around the room. Too often she’d witnessed how others reacted to her ability to see into the future and mind-speak with various animals. In the past she’d been declared a witch, a sorceress, and a demon.
With no one left to protect her after her father’s death, she and her mother had been forced to flee deep into the woods to a cottage that had been part of her mother’s dowry. Her mother died but a year after that horrifying night. Angelique learned to accept solitude with only her cat for companionship—actually preferred it that way. Never would she allow herself to again be persecuted for a gift she’d never asked to possess.
For now, she would clear up this foolish mess her cat had created, give the king her vital warning, and then hurry back to the safety of her secluded existence.
The other guard returned. “The king will see you.” Angelique rose and draped Lancelot over her shoulder.
Behave. I mean it, Lancelot. We are in enough trouble thanks to your inability to control your…your lust, Angelique warned.
Yes, yes. I understand. I shall be the purrrrfect pet. Lancelot extended his claws and pricked the skin of her shoulder. She winced from the unexpected sting.
I cannot imagine why I do not believe you.
She followed the guard into a large open room. Against the far wall sat the king, flanked on either side by his two mistresses. The large woman who’d caused her arrest that afternoon held the fluffy white cat Lancelot had mated with in her arms. She pointed an angry finger in Angelique’s direction and opened her mouth to speak.
A loud bang echoed through the room, causing Angelique to whip her head around and focus her attention on the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. His presence filled the room like an ethereal vapor and choked the breath from her lungs.
Dressed in black from head to foot, the man posed a menacing figure. He wore no wig, merely his own long, dark hair tied neatly back from his chiseled face. His black silk shirt was opened at the neck and tucked into leg forming breeches. Black boots adorned his muscular calves. A contradiction to fashion she found intriguing.