Hot & Bothered

by Susan Andersen

  He intercepted her hand. “Darlin’—”

  “Don’t.” She pulled her fingers free. “I can’t talk about this right now. We had the excuse of a faulty condom in Pensacola, but we don’t have a good excuse for this.”

  “Doesn’t mean we don’t still need to decide—” What? He didn’t know what the hell the next step was supposed to be.

  As if reading his mind, she echoed, “What—how we handle it this time if I turn up pregnant again? Oh, God.” She stepped around him to reach for the lock again, but instead of turning it, she rested her forehead on the wooden panel of the door. “It’s not like we just resolved anything, John. Maybe you had the right idea. Maybe it is time you went back to Denver.”

  It was what he’d thought best for everyone ten minutes ago. So why didn’t it make him feel any better to hear her agreeing now? Why did it instead seem to increase the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach? “That’s what I was trying to tell you,” he said, but being right did nothing to prevent his heart from feeling as if someone had used it to mop up the floor.

  Well, screw that, he thought as he watched her turn the lock on the door. But he had to fist his hands to keep himself from running a finger down her nape where it was exposed by her upswept hair and he forced extra crispness into his voice to compensate. “I don’t know about you,” he said briskly, “but I’m in no mood to go out there and make the big announcement that our engagement is off. How about we try to get through tonight without giving the Springs a new scandal to serve up with their morning Wheaties?”

  She turned her head to look at him and for a moment she looked so defeated he wanted nothing more than to pull her into his arms. But even as he watched, her spine snapped erect and her chin raised. “Sure.” She shrugged her smooth shoulders. “I can if you can.”

  “Hell, yeah,” he said. “Not a problem.” And with pride stiffening his own backbone, he reached past her to open the door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  IDIOT, IDIOT, IDIOT!

  Standing amidst the partygoers, Victoria smiled and chatted and pretended everything was fine. That she was fine. But one shallow scratch beneath the carefully erected surface was a virago who wanted to scream and kick and tear her hair out by the roots. A heartsick fool who wanted to curl up into a ball of misery and cry an ocean of tears.

  How could she have been so irresponsible? Not only with her heart, which when it came to John Miglionni couldn’t really be helped, but with her body, which certainly could have been. While she would never regret the decision to have Esme and refused to apologize for the circumstances of her daughter’s birth, neither had she ever intended to bring another child into the world outside the sanctity of marriage. She’d be damn lucky, however, if rolling around on the desk with John this evening didn’t result in a sibling for Es nine months down the line. Heaven knew they’d been fertile beyond belief when they had practiced birth control. What were the chances of avoiding another pregnancy in the wake of such blatant carelessness?

  God. What was it about Rocket, anyway, that made her abandon all sense of propriety? Somehow the fact that she was madly in love with him didn’t strike her as a sound enough excuse for losing all semblance of good sense. Yet deep in her heart she couldn’t help but feel it was his fault her brain fried whenever he touched her.

  His fault for not being smart enough to love her back.

  A woman wearing enough jewelry to subsidize a small nation finally wound up the anecdote she’d been relating and Victoria smiled and murmured a perfunctory response. For some reason the woman looked shocked, but before she could summon the energy to discover why, John offered the woman their excuses and gave Victoria’s elbow a light tug. She drifted away in response to his guiding hand.

  He bent his head to hers as he steered them toward the bar. “‘Lovely’ probably wasn’t the best response to being told her pet poodle had died,” he murmured.

  “Um-hmm,” she agreed vaguely. For just a moment the fog lifted from her brain and his face came into focus. His dark eyes were hooded, his eyebrows drawn together over the Roman thrust of his nose as he stared down at her, and she noticed he didn’t appear any happier than she.

  Her heart squeezed. As much as she’d love to assign all blame for this mess to him, in good conscience she couldn’t. He hadn’t asked her to fall in love with him and she’d certainly contributed her fair share to tonight’s debacle. Perhaps even more so than him, if one went strictly by the facts, since she’d been the first to put her hands where they didn’t belong. And she hadn’t even had the grace to regret it—not until the realization of their failure to use a condom had exploded into her consciousness.

  “Maybe trying to stick out the evening isn’t such a hot idea after all,” John said quietly.

  She nodded. The chance to escape and the opportunity for privacy to deal with her tumultuous feelings was suddenly too attractive to pass up. “Yes. Let’s go—”

  “Ms. Hamilton,” a soft feminine voice interrupted them. “Hello.”

  She blinked and turned to the young woman who’d brushed soft fingers across her forearm to get her attention. “Please,” she responded automatically while her brain tried to process where she’d seen the sandy-haired woman and her stocky escort. “Call me Victoria.” Then the facts clicked into place. “How are you, Mrs. Sanders? Are you enjoying the dance?”

  “I’m fine and please, do call me Terri. The party is lovely.”

  “Yes, it is, isn’t it? Have you met my fiancé?” Without awaiting an answer she turned to Rocket. “John, this is Terri Sanders and her husband, George. Terri was my father’s administrative assistant. Terri, George, please meet John Miglionni.”

  “How do you do?” John shook hands with the couple. “If we were already introduced at Ford’s memorial please forgive me,” he said with an easy smile. “Between that and tonight’s dance, I’ve met so many people my head is beginning to swim. So I’m officially declaring a break. Please. Won’t you join us at our table? Allow me to buy you a drink.”

  An automatic protest rose in Victoria’s throat. But she swallowed it. There was something about his white-toothed, megawatt smile as he poured on the charisma that served to pull her scattered thoughts together and she abruptly realized that Terri Sanders might well have information about her father. She had to get a grip on her wandering mind. A memory scratched for attention as John smoothly ushered everyone to the linen-draped table and she gave him a curious look. “Did you say something about a poodle?”

  A faint smile crooked his lips. “Yeah. We’ll talk about it later.”

  She managed to hold up her end of a superficial conversation while John collected drinks from the bar, but it wasn’t until he’d returned and was emptying the tray onto the table that a substantive thought struck her. She reached out to touch Terri’s hand. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I never even thought to ask if you were laid off when my father died. I know there’s a new CEO in place, I’m afraid I’ve been so caught up with my own concerns that I failed to follow through on the ramifications of Father’s death for his other employees. You must think me terribly rude.”

  “Of course I don’t,” the other woman insisted. “And as it happens, very few jobs were lost. Your father ran a tight ship and he believed in delegating, so the infrastructure was in place to continue without him. I stayed on to tie up as many loose ends as I could and I actually had the opportunity to keep my position with the new CEO, but I accepted another offer from Soundhill Investments instead. They’re a corporation your father often dealt with, so they were familiar with my work.”

  “She’s the best,” George added, smiling at his wife with pride.

  “I have him trained to say that.”

  John and Tori laughed and he leaned forward, flashing an attentive, charming smile at the young woman. “It sounds as if Soundhill’s gain is definitely our loss. When do you start?”

  “Three weeks from Monday. After a vacation to Ireland that Geo
rge and I have had planned forever.”

  Victoria sat back and listened as John questioned Terri so skillfully that neither the young woman nor her husband appeared to have the slightest clue she was being interrogated. He drew from her the names of the current CEO and several others in the company who appeared to have benefitted from Ford’s death. It was clear from Terri’s responses that she had been a valuable employee and John played to that, as well, making much of her contribution and lamenting the fact that the company had let her services slip away without making more of an effort to retain them.

  Victoria leaned toward the other woman. “John’s right,” she agreed softly. “My father was extremely lucky to have you. Doubly so, considering how difficult he could be to deal with most of the time. I doubt anyone would say he was an easy man, so working for him couldn’t have been all roses.”

  “That’s a fact,” George Sanders said. “You, however, are a nicer person altogether.” He draped his arm along the back of his wife’s chair and strummed his fingertips up and down her upper arm. “Tell them about the bonuses, honey.”

  Terri bit her lip and glancing from John to her and back again. Finally she took a deep breath, softly exhaled, and straightened her shoulders. “I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but several years ago, for all intents and purposes, Ford moved the company headquarters to the Cayman Islands. Right after that he made a private agreement with the board to get his bonuses in bearer bonds.”

  Victoria blinked. “Yes?”

  John apparently saw some significance, however, for after a moment’s silence, he sucked in a breath, sat a little straighter, and pinned the AA in his sights. “Because a Cayman-registered business doesn’t require that the bonds be reported to the IRS?”

  “Yes. I made copies of the transactions and it would be a great relief to turn them over to you. While I know it’s none of my business, those bonds are virtually the same thing as cash and since Ford’s death I’ve never once heard them mentioned. I don’t like the thought of them just floating around out there.” She shot them an apologetic grimace. “I realize I should probably have reported this to the police myself, but I hesitated to make Ford’s private finances public.”

  “I respect your loyalty.” John was quiet for a moment, then said, “When do you leave for your trip to Ireland?”

  “Well, that’s the thing. Our flight leaves tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Where are the copies now?”

  She hesitated, then blew out a breath and admitted, “I took them home with me when I left.”

  John’s expression remained nonjudgmental. “Then why don’t we follow you on our way home and gather whatever you want to give us? That way you can leave for your vacation with all the loose ends tied up.”

  “You wouldn’t mind?”

  John raised his eyebrows at Victoria, who smiled at the young woman. “Not at all,” she said. “Just say the word when you’re ready to go.”

  “Well, if you truly mean that, we were actually about to leave when I spotted you and thought I should say hello. We still have a great deal of packing to do.”

  “Excellent.” She rose to her feet with alacrity. Maybe this night would finally end after all.

  As soon as she and John climbed into his car, her sense of well-being vanished. The atmosphere between them grew tenser by the minute as they followed the Sanders to their home.

  John turned to look at her at the first red light. “Tori, listen—”

  The last thing she could bear was a rehash of their problems. They’d already said everything that needed to be said and it had netted them nothing but pain. “It was good of Terri to inform us of Father’s bonds, wasn’t it?” she said coolly, her eyes on the car in front of them.

  “You think that was from the goodness of her heart?” He laughed shortly. “Sanders strikes me as bright enough to know when to cover her ass.”

  She turned in her seat to look at him directly. “What do you mean?”

  “I have a feeling she’s not as sure about the legality of those bonds as she claims and wants it on record that she did her best to inform someone in a position of authority—in this case you—should the situation ever come back to bite her on the butt.”

  She stared at him openmouthed. “My God. Nothing cynical about you, is there?”

  “I prefer to call it realistic. She had the opportunity to tell the police herself—but what do you imagine it would’ve done to her job search if it had been all over the news that she’d spilled her former employer’s private business?” He shrugged and fell silent, following the Sanders’ car to an attractive middle-income neighborhood several miles from the club. A moment later he pulled into a driveway off a tree-lined street behind the other couple.

  They followed Terri and George into a neat little brick house and down the hallway to a home office, where Terri opened the drawer of an oak filing cabinet. She extracted a slim file.

  Turning, she handed it to Victoria and then smiled brilliantly. “I feel free for the first time in a long while. Now I truly can enjoy our vacation.”

  They exchanged a few pleasantries, then Victoria and John climbed into his car and drove away. The instant they turned the corner out of sight of the young couple’s house, however, he pulled over to the curb, killed the engine, and turned on the overhead light. Victoria leaned over the console so they could both examine the copies of her father’s bearer bonds inside the folder she’d flipped opened.

  “Holy shit,” he breathed a moment later and sat back in his seat. “Six-point-five million a year for the past five years. That’s pretty good compensation.” He looked at her. “Were any of the actual bonds accounted for when you went through your father’s things?”

  She’d been slow about a lot of things tonight, but she, too, had figured out that they should have been with her father’s effects or at least listed on the asset sheet the lawyer had given her. “No.”

  He swore softly, turned off the overhead light and twisted around once more to gaze at her across the console. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  “That absolutely anyone could have killed my father and walked away with a fortune in bearer bonds?”

  “Yeah.” His dark eyes gleamed enigmatically in the dim, diffused light that filtered through the windshield from a standard on the other side of the lot. “And that I’m not going anywhere until we know for damn sure it wasn’t anyone living in your house.”

  JOHN FELT AS IF A HUGE boulder had been lifted off his chest and he didn’t even try to pretend otherwise. Despite his insistence that it was time to leave, he’d felt lousy ever since the words had left his mouth. The feeling had only grown stronger in the face of Victoria’s refusal to talk to him—or even look him in the eye if she had the least opportunity to do otherwise.

  So having a legitimate reason to stay was the good news. The bad news was this case was seriously screwed up. Ford’s having had a fortune in bearer bonds was purely overkill. The man’d had enough enemies as it was—throwing in a bundle in bonds that were cashable by anyone who got their hands on them merely made the possibilities too numerous to count.

  The only thing he knew for certain about this mess was that he wasn’t prepared to leave Tori and his kid alone to deal with it. He might not be worth a damn for their emotional health in the long run, but in the short run he was at least another bulwark to stand between them and whoever had killed Ford.

  Victoria hadn’t responded to his announcement one way or the other, and he turned to look at her leaning back against the passenger door. She looked shell-shocked and worn to a nub as she stared back at him.

  He gripped the steering wheel to keep from reaching for her. “Do I have your permission to search the mansion for the bonds?”

  She nodded jerkily.

  “Anyone could have taken them,” he admitted. “But there’s no sense speculating who until we’ve done our best to make sure they aren’t simply tucked away somewhere in the house. Once w
e have, I suppose we’ll have to take the information to the police.”

  “Dear God,” she said, looking even more tired, “you plan to do all that tonight?”

  “No,” he said, although in truth that had been his initial impulse. “First thing in the morning.”

  As it turned out, he didn’t sleep worth a damn. Betting that Victoria hadn’t, either, he rousted Jared out of bed at eight the following morning and the two of them were outside her rooms by eight-oh-seven. He knocked on the door to her suite as he finished explaining the situation to the teenager. The door swung open almost instantly, but no one was there. Then he adjusted his sights downward and found Esme beaming up at him.

  “Hi! Have you come to play with me, then?”

  “No, sweetie,” Victoria’s voice said from within the room. A second later she, too, was at the door. “We’re going to search for some missing things of your grandfather’s. Hello, darling,” she said to Jared, leaning forward to give him a peck on the cheek. “I didn’t expect to see you.”

  “I thought he should be here,” John said. “Seeing as he’s got the most to gain or lose from this latest development if we can give the cops another suspect to investigate.”

  “Yes, he does,” she agreed, barely sparing John a glance. “I should have thought of that myself.”

  “It sounds like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack to me,” Jared said a bit sullenly. “Still, I suppose I’m game if everyone else is.”

  “I’m game!” Esme bounced up and down on her toes. “I want to look, too, Mummy. Can I look for Grandpapa’s things, too?”

  “Sure. But this is not a game, Es, so I don’t want to hear about it if you grow bored.”

  “’Kay.”

  John dragged his gaze away from Victoria and his daughter. Part of him wanted to claim them, to mark his territory so anyone who might have other ideas—including Tori, herself—could just think again. Another part of him, however, urged him to get a grip. Allowing himself to feel possessive was just begging for trouble. He knew better than to put himself out there where people were free to examine him and find him wanting.