by LETO, JULIE
He’d assumed Madelyn’s disappearance had been spontaneous, but now that he thought about it, that didn’t make sense, either. Weaving the tale of the elopement to cover her trail had been brilliant—and required preplanning. He’d known Madelyn for many years and spontaneity wasn’t her forte. She’d made quite a few stupid decisions when backed into a corner. “Since when? When, Charlie? When did you know?”
Max was about to stand when Ariana laid her hand on his knee. The gesture wasn’t calming, as she’d obviously intended. But it sure as hell stopped him dead. A surge of something electric—a mixture of relief and desire—shot from her warm palm directly into his skin. He fell back into the cushions, his anger inoculated.
“About a month ago,” Charlie answered once he realized he was safe and didn’t need to shoot for the door. “Maddie wanted to call off the wedding, tell you she’d made a huge mistake, but she didn’t know how.”
“That’s bull!” Max insisted. “Maddie could tell me anything. She knew why we were getting married. Hell, it was her idea! It’s not like she was going to break my heart.”
“No, but she might have broken up the deal for Pier Nine. At that point, you’d sunk a lot of capital into it and, like it or not, her father and his bank control most of your investment funds. She was afraid that if she called off the wedding, something she knew you’d agree to, Uncle Randolph would take it out on you by torpedoing the deal. She knows how much the Pier means to you.”
Max pressed his lips together, silenced by the truth. Luckily, Ariana had questions of her own to fill the void while he mulled over Maddie’s collusion in this potential catastrophe.
“And how did I play into this?” Ari asked. “Did Maddie handpick me?”
“No. You were my idea. I’ve spent the past two years watching Max stare at you, watching him pretend he wasn’t salivating every time you walked through the restaurant or stopped at our table. I just figured I’d play matchmaker. That simple. I had the opportunity. I took it.”
Charlie stepped forward and knelt by the coffee table, as close to Ari’s feet as he could. “I swear on my mother’s grave. I just wanted the two of you to be happy.”
Ari’s ebony eyes narrowed. “Is his mother really dead?” she asked Max, obviously wondering how to gauge his friend’s sincerity.
“Since he was twenty,” Max answered with a bittersweet grin. “And from what I hear, she was a very good woman.”
Ariana’s lips twisted into a reluctant grin. “I’m sorry for your loss.” Then she grabbed his shirt at the chest, twisting the cotton around her hand. “But if you ever lie to me again, Charlie Burrows—if that is indeed your real name—I’ll light you up the same way I do my Flaming Eros, understand?”
Charlie grinned and stood, smoothing out the crinkles in his shirt. “Yes, ma’am.”
“So, now what?” she asked, breaking her eye contact with Charlie to lock an expectant stare on Max.
“Now I apologize,” Max said. “I didn’t mean for your picture…”
She pulled her robe more closed. “Let’s not talk about the picture, okay? Like you said on the phone, no one can tell it’s me.” She squirmed and her gaze darted at Charlie, then back to Max.
Charlie didn’t miss the hint. “Maybe I should leave you two alone. I’m going to drop by Uncle Randolph and Aunt Barbara’s house. See what they know.”
Max nodded. None of the messages on his machine were from Randolph Burrows. Ten calls were from Charlie. Two were from his secretary, who read The Bay Insider daily, and accurately read through the hidden meaning in the caption, but angel that she was, assumed the picture was a fake. Several others were congratulatory messages from wedding guests who’d gotten word of the elopement and couldn’t make the ceremony since the bride and groom weren’t going to be there. None yet from any investors or the owners of the Pier. The picture had done no damage—so far.
“Tomorrow is Memorial Day,” Max reminded them. “Most offices are closed. We have until Tuesday before we can really find out what’s going on. Most of our investors are loyal to the Examiner and the Chronicle. They won’t read The Bay Insider. It’s too young and hip. But they’ll hear the news as soon as they get back to their offices.”
“What do you want me to say when they start calling?” Charlie asked.
Max had absolutely no intention of going into the office and handling this himself. Yes, it was probably the prudent thing to do. But since Maddie had gone to all that trouble to create a week-long alibi, he wasn’t going to screw things up with Ariana when he still had a chance to make things right.
“I’m going to get the hell out of town like I’m supposed to be. That’s what you tell the investors. How could it be me in the picture if I’m in Hawaii? On my honeymoon?”
“You have a very distinct balcony, Max. These people know real estate.”
“Then tell them the picture could have been taken a long time ago…before I owned the house. Or maybe it’s Maddie and me. Our privacy was invaded and we’re outraged. I don’t care what you tell them, Charlie, just keep things as calm as you can for twenty-four hours. We’ll check in then.”
Max turned to Ariana and joined both her hands with his. “That is, if we’re still a we. You still want to see the city with me?”
With a hint of a smile, Ariana bit her bottom lip imbuing Max with a surge of power and relief that had his heart beating hard against his chest. He didn’t know what was happening to him. He’d been putting business and profit ahead of fun and pleasure since he was a child—a child old enough to realize that being poor meant you had little control over what happened to you. He’d been single-minded in his pursuit of wealth, his parents and brother being his only soft spot—a spot that eventually grew to include Maddie and Charlie. And now Ariana. And with Charlie newly married and Maddie exploring the world, Max felt the emptiness in his heart with magnified intensity. He couldn’t let Ariana just slip away.
She grinned at him now with a smile half wicked, half resigned. “I think we should concentrate on the outlying areas of the city—those secret spots no one knows about—don’t you?”
She still had her sense of humor. She still had her sense of adventure. The woman was unstoppable once she set her mind to something. If he could help it, he wouldn’t hurt her again.
The door clicked closed as Charlie departed. A thousand separate concerns ricocheted through his brain. The first was the possibility that the photographer who had caught them on the balcony continued to follow them and had more pictures to share with the press—more ammunition to convince his investors that Max had faked his marriage, was a liar not to be trusted, was a cheat unfaithful to his wife. Who knew what other sickening spins someone with an agenda could put on his affair with Ariana to impugn his development deal?
But at the moment, Max didn’t care. The moment his lips pressed against Ariana’s soft mouth, the worries of his world dispersed in a puff of smoke.
LIKE TEENAGERS ON THE RUN, Ariana and Max stuffed a few essentials into one small bag, rented a convertible in her name, just in case, and took to the highway. As they pulled onto Highway 1 approaching the Golden Gate, Ariana leaned back into the buttery leather seat and closed her eyes, allowing the stiff wind to buffet her face. By the time they’d passed the tollbooth where people on the other side paid to enter the City by the Bay, she wasn’t the least bit concerned with newspapers or scandals or real estate or bare breasts peeking through fog and Plexiglas. Anticipation for her next adventure with Max overrode any and all negative thoughts. She didn’t even succumb to that unstoppable sensation of falling she usually experienced just thinking about going across the bridge, much less actually doing it. Max was doing amazing things to her fear of heights—first on the balcony and then at the windowsill. Max did amazing things to her, period.
She didn’t remember ever feeling so free, so avid and impatient for adventure, since she’d boarded the plane to California all those years ago. She’d been wide-eyed and open t
o all experiences then. Ready to cast off the chains of her upbringing. But marriage to Rick had slowly taken most of the fight out of her—forced her to narrow the scope of her vision and energy on career goals only. She’d done damn well for herself, but now she clearly saw all she’d missed.
With Max, she fantasized she could take on the world—and win. If only she could keep Max around for longer than a week. Shaking her head, she forced the thought away. Not today, she insisted to herself, knowing that following that train of thought would lead to maudlin conclusions she didn’t want to face.
Instead, she focused on the thrill of doing something new, something she’d wanted to do for years. As a restaurateur and bartender, she’d been invited to attend tastings and festivals in nearby Napa and Sonoma Valleys. The tourists in her restaurant raved about the beauty of the wine country, but she’d never had the time to go. Maybe she’d never made the time. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to experience the rolling hills and fertile farmland by herself or with only business on her mind.
Thanks to Max, now she didn’t have to.
“This is wonderful!” she shouted over the roar from the road. “I can’t believe you booked us at a private winery. I’ve never even been to one that’s open to the public! Are you sure your friend won’t rat you out to the newspapers?”
“Phillipe?” Max shifted the car into fifth gear, then settled comfortably into a fast cruising speed. “He doesn’t give two flips for American politics if it doesn’t affect his business. He came to the States from France five years ago with a box of grape plants and a dream. I was the real estate agent who found the winery he bought and built up. People don’t do that anymore, you know.”
Ariana nodded. “My great-grandparents did, but that was a long time ago. They turned a plywood seafood stand into one of Florida’s premier Greek restaurants.”
“Your family runs a restaurant in Florida?” he asked, apparently surprised. “Why didn’t you stay and run their place? Not that I’m not glad you came here.”
She rewarded his considerate comment with a sweet smile. “If I’d stayed in Tarpon Springs, I would never have made it beyond hostess. Women in my family don’t make important decisions or give commands—or generally do anything that requires public acknowledgment that you have a brain.”
“Which is why you left,” he guessed.
“Two weeks after my nineteenth birthday. Don’t get me wrong. I love my parents and my brothers. And I really didn’t want to go. I admire the sacrifices my great-grandparents made. My parents, too. But, even though they raised me, they couldn’t give me the respect I wanted.”
Max’s frown deepened as her story progressed. “They’ll have no choice but to give you that respect once you’ve made a real splash with Athens by the Bay.”
“That’s the plan.” She hated that Max could read her so easily, but then realized his own background gave him precisely the insight to understand the ferocity and breadth of her goal.
Hard work. Sacrifice. Ingenuity. Those three qualities had turned her great-grandparents’ American dream into reality. And she’d learned that those same three elements could go a long way, no matter the goal: restaurants, wineries…true love.
She shook the thought away, choosing to watch Max drive instead. He gripped the steering wheel at two o’clock with his right hand, his left arm was casually draped on the door while he toyed with the side mirror. His choice of clothing surprised her, but she thanked whoever or whatever was responsible for this fashion inspiration. The silky, slate-blue shirt fluttered in the wind, allowing her elongated glimpses at his bare chest. The material pleaded to be touched, smoothed by a woman’s palm. And who was she to say no? As soon as they got off this bridge, she was going to find out just how soft and slick that shirt was. And the skin underneath.
They drove across without another word, but the minute Max passed the exit to Sausalito—the small artist colony where they’d been docked the night before—Max asked a question that kept her desire to touch him in check.
“Did you and your husband ever take excursions out of the city?”
He glanced sidelong before putting his gaze back on the winding road, shifting and braking in smooth, fluid motions. He sure managed to mention her former marriage quite a bit. She didn’t mind as much as she thought she should. The pain of Rick’s rejection truly had faded to near nothing.
“Rick and I left the city all the time. He was a musician. He played gigs from Oakland down to L.A. We even went to Reno a few times.”
“So you probably saw more outside the city than you did within?”
She laughed at his assumption. “What I saw was the inside of a ratty van and even rattier clubs. I won’t even discuss the hotel rooms. Being a musician is an exciting adventure—for the musician, but not for his too-young, too-inexperienced wife. After a while, I stopped going with him. A little while longer and he was off to Seattle, then Nashville without me—for good.”
“So you hung out with your uncle at the restaurant while he was on the road?”
Ariana’s heart swelled. Max always seemed to plug right into her, know things about her before she told him. And he showed more concern with how Rick had abandoned her before the marriage was over, somehow knowing that had hurt the most. By the time Rick had left her the divorce papers, the worst was over. The damage had been done long before.
“Stefano was great to me. He gave me a job, taught me to mix drinks, let me experiment with the food. By the time Rick left, Stefano knew I was ready, willing and able to take over for him.” She stared at her hands, wringing them softly in her lap to keep her emotions at bay. She’d so wanted to run her parents’ restaurant in Florida, but they’d made it undeniably clear that the legacy would belong to her brothers. She could work for them as her sisters did, but she’d never run the show. So she’d left for California to find something to call hers and hers alone.
“The distraction of working was much appreciated and couldn’t have been better timed,” she concluded.
Max switched his right hand for his left on the wheel, then reached over and cupped her hands in his. “But running Stefano’s restaurant turned into more than a distraction, didn’t it? More than just a temporary means to take your mind off the sorry state of your life?”
The double meaning wasn’t lost on Ariana. Their week-long affair was supposed to achieve the same goal—provide a brief distraction to take both their minds off the sorry, lonely state of their lives. Scandal or not, she could feel their liaison changing into something much more serious, much more binding than she’d ever imagined.
She tried to pull her hands out of Max’s grasp, but he held tight. After he turned his eyes back to the road and allowed a self-satisfied grin to curl his lips, she gave up trying. He wasn’t going to say another word about it and he wasn’t going to let her go. He’d given her plenty to think about, plenty to hold on to and, luckily, they had a long drive ahead.
12
RANDOLPH BURROWS DRUMMED his fingers atop the grainy black-and-white photograph, grimacing when smudges of ink transferred from the newsprint to his fingertips. He pulled a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his blazer and wiped away the grime.
Too late for that, he mused. He was deep in the grime of scandal, deeper than he’d ever planned to be. Having Max Forrester followed should have produced some evidence of his ill-bred character before his daughter got hurt. He’d put a private investigator on his trail the day after Madelyn announced the engagement. He’d found nothing but the vague possibility that Forrester was having an affair with the owner of an ethnic restaurant on the Wharf. The rumored affair had been proved real by this picture, but too late. Madelyn had already run off, obviously humiliated.
Randolph had thought the photograph to be unusable, with the quality so poor and his daughter on the lam. He’d only paid the punk with the camera in hopes he’d find something more damning while he followed Maxwell and his Mediterranean mistress around the city—something Ran
dolph could use privately to force Maxwell Forrester out of their deal, now that the wedding was off. He had no idea his amateur paparazzi would take his money and then sell the indistinct photograph again to the newspapers.
This was supposed to be a personal matter.
With precision, Randolph withdrew a pair of scissors from his desk drawer and cut out the picture, then placed it in a manila folder that he slid into his briefcase. He needed to find his wayward photographer and yank in the reins. He’d accept nothing less than loyalty, even if he had to pay a hefty price—to which he resigned himself that he’d now have. Somehow, Leo Glass had figured out that there was more at stake in this operation than his daughter Madelyn’s honor or a few thousand dollars.
He stood, then tapped the button on his intercom. “James, bring the car around. I’m going to the office.”
“Oh, no, you’re not!”
Barbara fluttered into the room and poised at the corner of his desk, much like a butterfly alighting on a flower. She held a hat in each hand as if she was just coming into his study to ask his opinion on which one would look better with the flowing blue frock she wore. Damn, but she was one handsome woman. He couldn’t help but grin at his wife’s expression, a mixture of chastisement and humor. She would do her best to keep him from working today. She always did.
“It’s a bank holiday,” she pointed out, as if he somehow didn’t notice that the stock exchange was closed and he hadn’t had to rise before dawn to beat his staff to the office, as was his weekday ritual. “I’ve made reservations for us to take a cruise on the bay and Magda has packed a beautiful picnic lunch. We’re meeting the Andersons at the pier in an hour.”
“Darling, that sounds delightful, but I have an urgent matter I must attend to.”
“Nonsense, Randolph. How long has it been since we’ve gone off on a romantic excursion?” There was a slight pout to her grin, but only a slight one. She’d long ago perfected the exact dose of solemnity to add to her sensuous smile in order to get her way. “I suppose all this wedding planning and Madelyn’s elopement has me waxing poetic, but we’re not getting any younger. So tuck your business away until tomorrow. I allowed you to take your meeting with Charles over that Pier investment yesterday. That’s enough money talk for this holiday weekend.”