THE BRAVO BILLIONAIRE

by Christine Rimmer

  Emma clicked her tongue. Droopy-eared and downcast, they rose on all fours to jump down.

  "Hell," he said. "All right. They can stay – but I don't want them on top of me."

  Two sets of ears perked up. Emma sent him a tender smile and then snapped her fingers. The dogs moved to either corner at the end of the bed, each of them walking in a circle and then settling down, noses resting on front paws, eyes bright and grateful under all the eyebrow fringe.

  Emma got into the bed and so did he. She settled the sheet over them and pulled him close, guiding his head to rest on her breasts. She stroked his hair.

  "You want to talk about it?" She kissed his brow.

  He started to answer no automatically, but the word stopped itself somewhere short of sound.

  For the first time in thirty years, he found he did want to talk about it.

  He moved back a little, so he wasn't resting right on top of her anymore. But he kept his hand on her, fingers wrapped around her ribcage, arm resting across the lower part of her chest, right under her breasts. It felt good, as always, to be touching her.

  "It's a nightmare I've been having on and off, since the kidnapping. I know it has something to do with the kidnapping – I believe it actually is the kidnapping. That I relive it, in the dream."

  She asked gently, "You believe?"

  "I can't say for sure. When I wake up, I don't remember what the nightmare was. I hear myself shouting the word, No. And then, once the word is out, I can't breathe. I run sweat. You saw it…"

  She turned on her side. He moved his arm to accommodate her, sliding his hand down a little until it lay in the cove of her waist. She reached up, stroked the hair at his temple. "That's the real reason you sleep alone, isn't it? You don't want anyone to see you, to see what it's like for you, how awful it is for you. You think it makes you look weak."

  "I don't just think it, Emma. It's a fact. I am weak, when the dream gets me." He was a little stunned he had said it, that he'd admitted it out loud.

  But he had. And the world hadn't ended.

  Emma was watching him tenderly, her palm resting against the side of his face. "If you could remember the dream, then you would be remembering what happened that night, right?"

  "Could be. But I've learned not to get my hopes up." He took her hand, kissed it, twined his fingers with hers. "Tell me something."

  "Anything."

  "How much do you know about the kidnapping, anyway?"

  She lifted her shoulder in a shrug. "Blythe used to talk about it sometimes. About how awful it was, about the terrible effects it had on your family."

  "But I mean the specifics of what happened. Do you know that I went into my brother's room that night, that somehow I was knocked unconscious?"

  "Yes. I know that."

  "Apparently, I fought. There were bruises, on my arms and legs, over my ribs. And on my neck."

  "As if someone had tried to strangle you … and don't you think maybe that explains why, when you have that dream, you wake up and you can't breathe?"

  "It's more than possible. But I don't remember. I don't remember a damn thing about that night. And I've been questioned by the best, believe me, by what seemed like a never-ending chain of police detectives and police psychologists. And after the police were through with me, there were all the specialists my parents hired to try to pry open my mind and get to the secrets locked away in there – everything from psychiatrists to hypnotists to a few fringe types who claimed to have psychic powers. Nothing worked."

  "But Jonas, you do want to remember. Some part of you must. Some part of you has been tryin' to remember for thirty years."

  "Maybe so. But the fact remains that I don't remember. And whoever took my brother didn't make many mistakes. The police never found any real evidence that they could use to track down whoever did it. Whoever it was broke the lock on the door to the east entry, apparently got up the servants' stairway there and got in to the nursery without being spotted. It wasn't that far, just a few feet down the hall once the kidnapper made it up the stairs. And then it would have been so easy, to go back by the same route. I was the only glitch in the plan. And not that much of glitch, the way it turned out. A good whack on the side of the head, and my memory of what happened was wiped out."

  "Not completely wiped out. Just … trapped inside your head."

  "We assume. We don't even know that for certain, since I never remember the dream. It could be about something else altogether."

  "You don't believe that."

  "No. No, I don't."

  She gently pulled her fingers from his. "It sounds like the kidnapper had been in the house before, knew where to go in, the straightest way to the nursery…"

  "Yes, it does. Or maybe he – or she or they – bribed a servant. Though I have to say that the police found no evidence to that effect. And to open up a whole new chain of possibilities, there had been a piece in Gracious Homes magazine just a few months before, a ten-page spread on Angel's Crest – including the basic floor plan and lots of pictures. It's possible that the kidnapper could have gotten enough information from that to get in and get to the nursery without being caught."

  "Oh, Jonas. Any one of those explanations makes sense."

  "That's what I'm telling you. We have never even gotten close to learning who took my brother, who claimed two million in diamonds as a ransom – and then never brought him back to us."

  "Two million in diamonds," Emma whispered in a musing tone.

  "That's right. No one ever saw them again, either."

  "What about the nanny – I'm assuming you and your brother had one?"

  "We did. Like Claudia does now, she slept in a room right next to the baby's room. The police interrogated her. Extensively. They got nothing from her but tears and remorse that she didn't wake up when the whole thing went down."

  Emma traced his eyebrows, one and then the other, and idly asked, "You've moved the nursery, since then?"

  "Hell yes. We use those rooms for storage, have ever since we accepted the fact that Russell wasn't coming back."

  "Russell," she repeated his brother's name softly. "Blythe said he was a good baby, big and healthy. That he had a cute little cleft in his chin…"

  "Yeah," he said, not wanting to go any farther along that line. He didn't remember much about his baby brother. And what he did remember hurt. It was all loss and emptiness. Darkness. Fear. And in the end, a deep and abiding certainty that he should have done better, he should have done something to keep his brother safe.

  He knew it was classic stuff, that a six-year-old kid couldn't be expected to hold his own against an adult criminal with a two-million-dollar ransom on his – or her – mind. But unfortunately, what logic told him didn't go all that far toward allowing him to forgive himself.

  Emma put her finger on the tip of his chin. "You have it, too. That cute cleft right here."

  "FYI, a man is not thrilled when a woman calls him cute."

  "Oh, well, Jonas, whatever you say, especially since you are the most manly man…"

  "That's better – and it runs in the family."

  "Manliness?" She touched the groove in his chin a second time. "Or do you mean this cleft?"

  He grunted. "My father had it. And I have a certain second cousin, met him in Wyoming years and years ago. Name's Zach. He's got it – or he did when I was five and he was, oh about eight or nine, I guess…"

  "I didn't know you had a cousin in Wyoming."

  "What? Something my mother didn't share with you?"

  "That's right. Tell me about your Wyoming cousin."

  "Cousins. Plural. My great-great-grandfather homesteaded there, in northeastern Wyoming. Near a little town called Medicine Creek. The original homesteader's cabin is still on the ranch – or at least it was, when I was five. We only visited once, before Russell was born. I think we planned to go back, but then, well, life got pretty tough for the L.A. branch of the family. Somehow, years have gone by. Haven't bee
n back yet."

  "So your great-great-grandfather…"

  "Had a son."

  "Who had a son, who—"

  "Uh-uh. My great-grandfather had four sons. Ross, Gregory, Jonas and James. Ross, who had a few sons of his own, stayed in Wyoming. The other three didn't. Can't tell you off-hand what happened to James. I think that Gregory ended up in northern California. He had a son, who had a son, who had two daughters. Maybe you remember that Blythe heard from one of those daughters not too long ago?"

  Green eyes gleamed. "I do remember. Jenna's her name. Blythe told me all about her."

  "What a surprise."

  She went on, undaunted by his teasing. "Blythe said that Jenna even went to school here, at UCLA. And Jenna's sister lived in Los Angeles for a few years, too. But they didn't even realize they were kin to the L.A. Bravos. The connection had been broken over the years, Blythe said."

  "My mother was an only child of older parents. She didn't have much family. I think she wanted to reestablish connections with the other branches of the Bravo family, especially the past few years."

  "She and Jenna were plannin' to meet, weren't they? But then Blythe got so sick…"

  "Death can do that. Really gets in the way."

  She wrapped her hand around the back of his neck and threaded her fingers into his hair. "You have been doin' so well. Don't go gettin' cynical on me. Please…"

  How the hell could a man resist a request like that? For an answer, he moved his head close enough that he could kiss the tip of her nose.

  She grinned at him. "Much better. Now, tell me about your grandfather – whose name was Jonas, right, just like you?"

  "Right. My grandfather Jonas came here, to southern California. He invested in real estate. And he made a bundle. He built Angel's Crest. And he had two sons. The oldest, Harry…"

  "Your father."

  He nodded. "And four years later…"

  Emma shivered. "The evil Blake."

  "With whom we do not have to concern ourselves. He was dead in an apartment fire at the age of twenty-six."

  "Blythe said he was really a terrible man. That he was a cheat and a thief from the time he was little. That he would have gone to prison for manslaughter because he killed some poor fella in a barroom brawl."

  "That's right. He was out on bail when he died."

  "And that was – what – just a few years before Russell was kidnapped?"

  "I'm not sure, exactly. Two or three years, yes."

  "Your poor father. No wonder he had a stroke. Too many awful things happened to him, in too short a time."

  "Same for my mother. My father's death was the final straw for her. She withdrew – to the inside of her own head."

  "And that left you, didn't it Jonas? In all the ways that matter, for four years, you were all alone."

  "There were people to take care of me."

  "But in your heart, you felt alone."

  He moved closer to her. She was so warm, so alive, and she smelled so good. "Kiss me, Emma…"

  "Jonas, didn't you feel alone?"

  "You won't give up until I admit it, will you?"

  "Nope."

  "And then will you kiss me?"

  "You bet."

  "All right. I admit it. I felt alone."

  "You got used to things that way."

  "Putting words in my mouth? I'd rather have your tongue there."

  "Oh, you are so bad…"

  "Do I get my kiss now?"

  She lifted her mouth for him. He took it, reaching out, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her as close as he could possibly get her.

  Eventually, he slept again – straight through, that time, until dawn. If he had dreams, they were good ones. Because he woke to a feeling of lightness, a sense that, at that moment, in bed next to Emma early on a Monday morning, all was right with the world.

  * * *

  Jonas went on another business trip, to Dallas that time, on Tuesday. He was back by Thursday. He shared dinner with Emma that night in the small dining room and afterward, they went upstairs together, to Emma's bed.

  They were asleep by eleven and the dream did not come for him. He woke at dawn, refreshed. That Saturday, they took Mandy to Griffith Park. And the next Saturday, they all flew to San Francisco, just for fun.

  Those were lovely days, days that Emma stored in her heart, to treasure forever, the days after Jonas gave in and came to her bed to stay for the whole night.

  Sometimes, in the mornings at the breakfast table, or in the evenings at dinner – or on weekends, when they strolled the paths at Griffith Park or fed the seals at Fisherman's Wharf, it began to seem to Emma that they truly were a family, a married couple with a toddler, in love and blissfully happy with the life they had made.

  Maybe she shouldn't have, but somehow she couldn't stop herself from hoping that someday soon Jonas would speak of love to her, that he would confess he had no intention of ending their marriage when the year was up.

  But the wonderful days went by. He was open and loving with her, yet he did not say the words she longed to hear.

  Then again, neither did she.

  And maybe that was the best way, for now. To take this time as it came to them, take each day as a gift. There would be ample opportunity in the months to come to talk of what might happen when a year had passed.

  On Monday, the day after their return from San Francisco, at eleven-thirty in the morning, Jonas sent a car to pick Emma up at Pet-Ritz. He had two hours for lunch – from twelve to two – and she had arranged to take the same time off herself. They'd agreed to spend that time together, sharing a catered meal in his office. Emma rode to their rendezvous with a naughty feeling of anticipation making her stomach all fluttery, causing her heart to beat just a little too fast.

  She'd seen the way he looked at her the last time she visited him at Bravo, Incorporated. That had been before he agreed to sleep with her, when he was keeping hands off. Today, it would be different. They would lock the door and he would tell his secretary not to disturb them.

  Anything could happen.

  My, my, my. In an office penthouse suite, forty stories up. And it was such a big desk he had…

  She had the driver let her out at the main entrance to the Bravo Building. She went in through the giant glass turnstile door, marched across the pale marble floor and right up to the high desk where two security guards were waiting.

  "Mrs. Bravo," said one of the guards. His name was Bert McCandless. It said so on his nametag, which was pinned to the breast pocket of his very official-looking blue uniform. Bert was smiling, a big, welcoming smile. "I believe you are expected."

  "I sure am, Officer McCandless."

  "Call me Bert."

  "Will do, Bert." She beamed at the other guard, sneaking a peak at his nametag, as well. "And how are you today, Todd?"

  "Mrs. Bravo, I am just fine."

  "Let me escort you up." Bert started to come out from behind the desk.

  Emma waved him back. "Don't you bother yourself. I know the way." She started to turn for the elevators.

  A hand brushed her left arm. "Excuse me. Mrs. Bravo? Mrs. Jonas Bravo?"

  Emma turned toward the voice, saw that it belonged to a tall, lean man with wavy brown hair and the face of a poet or maybe a rock star – a face that was somehow vaguely familiar.

  The two guards had stiffened. Hands went to weapons. "Step away from Mrs. Bravo," Bert commanded.

  Emma whirled on him. "Oh, stop that."

  "Mrs. Bravo, please," Bert instructed in a warning tone. "Let us handle this guy."

  Emma glared at him. "Bert, I am serious as liver failure here. Back off. This man is not plannin' to do me any harm." She sent a narrow-eyed glance at the man in question again. "Are you?"

  The man was carrying a briefcase. He slid it between his legs on the floor and put up both hands, palms out. "No way," he said, somehow managing to sound both ironical and sincere.

  And Emma knew. Right then
, somehow, she knew. Though his eyes were brown, not deepest blue, though his chin didn't have the slightest hint of a cleft. A Bravo. Yes. There was something about him, something she couldn't put her finger on. Maybe it was the way he carried himself, or something in the shape of his face, or in the determined set of his strong jaw. Maybe it was a combination of those things. Whatever. Emma was certain that this man and Jonas shared a blood connection.

  The man said, "I only want to talk – to your husband. Last week, I called several times. No one would put me through to him and he never returned my calls. So I flew to Los Angeles. I came in here first thing this morning, hoping I might accomplish in person what I couldn't seem to do by phone. I was told to wait. I have waited. For about three hours now. Everyone keeps telling me I'll have to keep waiting. That Mr. Bravo is a very busy man. That—"

  "Oh, put your hands down," Emma said. The man shrugged and lowered them to his sides, then bent to pick up the briefcase again.

  Emma asked, "What's your name?"

  "Marsh Bravo."

  Delighted, Emma clapped her hands together. "Oh, I knew it. You have that look."

  Marsh Bravo frowned.

  Emma explained, "You just … you look like a Bravo, that's all."

  "I see," he said warily.

  "Are you from Wyoming?"

  "No. Oklahoma."

  "Hmm." Emma couldn't remember either Blythe or Jonas mentioning that any of the Bravos had settled in Oklahoma, and this man had nothing of Oklahoma in his voice. "I'm a west Texas girl myself – and you sound a lot like a Yankee to me."

  "I lived for several years in Chicago. I just moved back to my hometown a few months ago."

  "Well, now. That would explain it, I guess." Emma rested an elbow on the desk. People went in and out of the turnstile door, got on the elevators, and got off. They all minded their own business, though – well, except for Bert and Todd. The two guards were leaning on their side of the desk, looking from Emma to Marsh Bravo and back again, like spectators at a tennis match.

  Emma said, "And you are a second cousin, of Jonas's?"

  "No. A first cousin. My father and your husband's father were brothers."

  Emma couldn't quite believe what she'd just heard. "But … Jonas's father only had one brother."