“Dark?”
“Yeah, like really dark,” she said, recalling the drawn curtains and reversed laptop screens.
“Maybe he’s a vampire.”
“Very funny. I’m sure it was some form of intimidation tactic.” For that matter, she bet he used his voice in the same manner. The husky growl had to be put on. No one’s voice actually sounded that way. Gravel-laced yet smooth. Like sandpaper being dragged across silk. She shivered as the memory of the sound wrapped around the base of her spine. Definitely staged. She considered herself an expert on disingenuous voices. After all, she’d fallen for some of Chicago’s best.
“Perhaps you’ll get a better look on the second visit.”
Lost in thought, Jenny almost missed Marney’s comment. “What second visit?” Oh. “Never mind.” Marney meant when she returned Charlie. “He called me a con artist,” she repeated for the third time, pretending her voice did not have a whiny tone.
“I know he did, but I doubt a judge will care when you’re dragged in on larceny charges. I looked it up while we were talking. Theft of property over $500 is larceny, and seeing how Charlie is probably worth—”
“I get your point.” Damn. This wasn’t fair. Charlie was more than property. “What about the fact he owes me money? Doesn’t that count for anything?”
Marney paused. “Might change the crime from kidnapping to extortion.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Jenny leaned her head against the crown molding. Much as she hated to admit it, Marney was right. Bonaparte refusing to reimburse her expenses without a genetic test wasn’t illegal—her refusing to return his dog was. What’s more, if word got out about her stealing Bonaparte’s property, she’d have to answer to the superintendent. School boards were pretty sensitive about their teachers having criminal records. Her best was to return Charlie and hope Bonaparte had a sense of humor. “I’ll take Charlie back tonight.”
“Now there’s the sensible school teacher we all know and love. Let me know how things go.”
Jenny already knew how they would go. Awful. Having clicked off the phone, she stood in the kitchen doorway with the receiver pressed against her stomach, hoping to stem the nausea. Just the idea of facing Nicholas Bonaparte jumbled her insides. She didn’t tell Marney, but something about this afternoon’s visit unnerved her. Not in a frightened way, but rather a confused, exposed kind of feeling. In five minutes he’d managed to unlock a side of her that until now, she’d successfully buried. She didn’t like how he pushed her buttons, caused her self-control to slip. If a simple argument could drive her to dognapping, what else might she be driven to do?
If only he’d shown Charlie a little affection. Then she wouldn’t have felt such a kinship for the damn dog.
Kinship or not, nothing was worth losing her job and reputation over. She took a couple deep cleansing breaths to prepare her herself, then opened her eyes. “Come on, Charlie, we might as well get this over with.”
The house was strangely quiet.
“Charlie? Lulu?”
She looked around the kitchen. Nothing but Lulu’s empty dog bed, a pair of empty food dishes, and the new bag of dog food propped next to the back door. The open back door.
Dammit.
Chapter Three
It was shaping up to be a moonless night. As he walked the woods off the base of his driveway, Nick was beginning to think the weather patterns were coordinating with his moods. Ever since the schoolteacher’s visit, his temperament had been darker than usual. He could hear the doctors now. Bad days are to be expected, Mr. Bonaparte. Healing takes time. He’d been listening to their condescending comments for close to three years now. Far as he was concerned, the only thing time did was pass by. Neither he nor his disposition were going to heal any more than they already had.
He knew the exact cause of tonight’s moroseness. Jennifer Travolini, that fiery sprite, had stirred his libido, and his arousal only reminded him how empty his bed was these days. How empty it would be for the rest of his life. God, but he ached to feel a woman’s body against his. Oh sure, he could pay someone. The world was full of indiscriminating women who would sleep with anyone for a price. He wanted more than sex, however. He wanted a woman who wanted him—all of him, scars and all. Who looked forward to seeing his face every morning as well as share his bed every night.
Then again, he couldn’t find such a woman even before the accident. Why should circumstances change now?
And he’d thought he and Megan were kindred spirits. Hell, maybe they were. Selfish, driven, superficial kindred spirits. No wonder she couldn’t look at him anymore. Now that the outside matched the inside.
In the distance, he heard the faint jingle of metal. He must have walked closer to the road than he realized. As the noise grew closer, he stepped back, into the trees so he wouldn’t be seen.
Cyrus considered all this insistence on dark and shadows dramatic. He was forever reminding Nick that his wealth and reputation provided plenty of compensation, even if by some rare chance a nosy paparazzi snagged a photograph. But of course, Cyrus would feel that way. He never had to endure the looks that flashed across people’s faces. Pity and revulsion, followed by the smug hint of satisfaction.
This latest effort, the trip to Europe, had been the last. He was done trying to fix what couldn’t change. If that meant living alone in the shadows, then so be it. At least in the dark, he could still feel a little bit in control.
The jingling grew closer. Oddly enough he didn’t hear footsteps. Nick looked up the path. Thank goodness for daylight savings time. Though dark at dusk, it was still light enough for him to make out shapes. Up ahead, he spied a pair of two-foot high silhouettes trotting toward him, one particularly bouncy and hyperactive while the other followed demurely behind. A moment later, a wet nose could be heard sniffing in his direction.
“Broke out of the big house, did you?” Funny how he instinctively knew his visitor. Guess he paid more attention to his dog than he thought. Kneeling, he extended his fingers. Charlie sniffed them cautiously then began wagging his tail in greeting. His enthusiastic and unreserved acceptance brought a shift in Nick’s chest.
“Maybe I’ll take you back after all,” he said, giving the dog’s ears a rub. The short fur was coarse against his skin.
He felt another wet nose nudge his skin and turned to look at Charlie’s companion. Though he couldn’t make out the coloring, he saw the outline of long curly ears and a small round face. “The infamous Lulu, I presume.” He stroked her ear, the strands slipping through his fingers like corn silk.
Made him wonder what her owner’s hair felt like.
Her owner. Jennifer would no doubt be looking for the animals. In spite of himself, his blood stirred at the prospect of seeing her again.
“Charlie! Lulu!”
Speak of the devil. A second later, Jenny’s silhouette came into view. At some point, she’d put a jacket over her cardigan, another bulky layer hiding her body. Didn’t matter. Nick’s body still stirred in appreciation. As he looked her up and down, he found himself actually cursing the darkness. It kept him from seeing her features clearly. She had such an expressive face. But if he couldn’t see her features clearly, then she couldn’t see his.
…
“What do you two think you’re doing, taking off like that?”
Jenny gave the dogs a stern look, though she doubted the scowl would do much good. First off, she wasn’t sure the dogs could see her face, and second, they didn’t look the least bit sorry for running away. The two of them were sitting on the edge of the path, tails wagging like they’d won a game. “Your bad habits are rubbing off,” she told the terrier. She swore his responding bark sounded proud. “I turn my back for two minutes…”
By the time she’d searched her condo and determined that the two dogs had indeed run outside and weren’t simply playing upstairs, Charlie and Lulu were halfway up the street. She’d been playing stop and start with them ever since, with the pai
r only letting her get so close before taking off down the street again.
“And did you have to come here?” She’d cursed aloud when she saw them dash onto Bonaparte’s property. “What if someone sees you and tells Mr. Bonaparte?”
“Too late. He already knows.”
Jenny jumped. The gravelly voice seemed to come out of nowhere. Looking around, she finally spied him leaning against the trunk of a sprawling oak tree.
“Did I startle you?” he asked.
He knew damn well he did. She’d brought a flashlight to help her spot the dogs. Now she moved the light so she could see him better, only to have him hold up his arms and step back. “Don’t.”
“You have a problem with being in the light?”
“I have a problem with light shining directly in my eyes.”
A reasonable explanation had he not also hidden in a dark office earlier that afternoon. “Better?” she asked, lowering the light.
“Seeing how I’m no longer blinded, yes. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She noted he didn’t carry a flashlight of his own. Either he knew these paths by heart or Marney was right; he was a vampire. “Tell me, do you always skulk around the woods at night?”
“I do when I own the property. And, it’s called walking. I find the solitude helps me to think.” He shifted his position, his shoulders scraping against the bark. “I’d ask what you’re doing here but the answer’s obvious.”
Thankfully the night hid her red cheeks. “They snuck out while I was unloading the dog food.” A small lie, but she wasn’t about to admit the dogs escaped while she was thinking about him.
“Interesting how Charlie chose to come here, don’t you think? Almost as though he were being kept someplace he didn’t want to be.”
Ouch. “Except he didn’t come alone. How do you explain Lulu tagging along?”
“Maybe he thought she’d enjoy a moonlight stroll.”
“Right. Because dogs go on so many dates.”
“Do you have a better reason?”
Unfortunately, she didn’t other than Charlie’s penchant for wandering, and she didn’t want to start that conversation again. She was here to return the dog, not come up with a reason to dognap him again.
Charlie trotted over to his owner and stood on hind legs, nudging his hand. To her surprise, the man actually appeared to scratch the dog’s head. Taking advantage of the moment, Jenny pulled a pair of leashes from her pocket and clipped one of them to a distracted Lulu’s collar. Soon as Charlie made his way back to the path, she corralled him as well.
“Gotcha,” she murmured. Not that he put up much of a fight. Must have used up his energy getting here.
“If I’d known you were going to let him roam all over town after dark, I’d never have let you take him.”
“Excuse me?” She looked up from leashing Charlie. “Did you say let me take him?”
“You don’t think you would have gotten off the property otherwise, do you?”
She thought back to her departure. She’d been so annoyed, she didn’t give it a second thought, but the security guard barely gave her a second glance now that she thought about it. One would think a billionaire like Nicholas Bonaparte, with his money and access to technology, could have stopped her with the push of a button.
And here she’d been driving herself crazy for the past hour worrying he was going to call the police. She couldn’t help herself. She started to laugh.
“Something funny?”
Yeah, her. “I thought—never mind.” If the man hadn’t thought to call the police on her for taking Charlie, far be it for her to put ideas in his head.
The fact that Bonaparte didn’t do anything, however, did beget a question. “Why did you let me take him?”
He shrugged and Jenny really wished she could see his expression to know if he looked as unaffected as the shrug implied. Her gut wasn’t so certain. “I never set out to own a dog in the first place. Getting him was my fiancée’s idea.”
He had a fiancée? “She must be upset I took off with him.”
“Doubt it. She departed first.”
“I’m sorry.” Although why, she wasn’t sure. For all she knew, the man broke the engagement happily. Again, her gut said otherwise. “How come Charlie isn’t with her?”
“Simple. I kept him out of spite.”
Jenny blinked, unsure what to say. She must have made a sound though, because he gave a humorless laugh. “You believe me, don’t you?”
“I don’t—” She was confused. “Should I?”
“You can believe what you want to believe, Ms. Travolini.”
“Telling me what I can believe and what I should believe are two different things.” And she got the distinct impression, based on his tone of voice, that there was a sharp difference in this case. Despite his cavalier behavior. “Which one is the truth?”
A beat passed. “You really want to know?” he asked, pushing away from the tree. “She decided she didn’t want him anymore, so she walked away and left him.”
“Just like that?” His words stabbed very close to home. No wonder she bonded so strongly with Charlie. It was a case of one abandoned soul recognizing another. “People can be so heartless,” she murmured, giving Lulu’s neck stroke.
“Present company included, I assume.”
Jenny’s cheeks grew hot. “I—”
“Don’t worry. You aren’t the first person to make the suggestion.”
Charlie and Lulu were yanking on their leashes, eager to start moving again. Jenny felt herself being tugged forward. “I’d better—”
“Of course.” To her surprise, he fell in step beside her. Then again, maybe it wasn’t so surprising. Certainly not as surprising as her walking with him. Having found the dogs, she should be turning around instead of heading deeper into his property.
They walked in silence for several feet. If Jenny thought Bonaparte imposing while sitting behind a desk, he was downright huge walking next to her. Her head barely cleared his shoulder. Through her years as a teacher, Jenny had encountered a lot of students larger than her; size usually didn’t intimidate her. But with him, she felt… Intimidation wasn’t the right word. Intimidation implied fear. Being next to Nicholas Bonaparte made her feel…delicate, female. Very, very female. She hadn’t felt this way in five years. It made her stomach flutter.
“So let me get this straight,” she said, needing to break the silence. “You won’t pay my vet bills until you have proof Charlie sired Lulu’s puppies, but you let me drive off with your purebred dog. Isn’t that a little odd, logic wise?”
“Your total vet bills will end up larger than Charlie’s assessed values. Plus, if you remember, I didn’t plan on giving you Charlie. You ran off with him.”
“You suggested I was trying to rip you off.”
“To which you retaliated by kidnapping my dog. You have an interesting way of proving your honesty.” Something about the way his low voice pronounced interesting made her insides turn soft.
“My friend Marney made the same point.” Much to her chagrin. “Although,” she added, “I’d like to remind you that you let me take Charlie, meaning I didn’t steal anything. I can’t kidnap my own dog.”
“No you cannot.” She heard him chuckle. Walking in the dark the way they were, the throaty sound had a bedroom-like quality. It was the laugh she always imaged a lover to have, intimate and sexy. The flutter in her stomach moved lower. She squeezed her fist before the awareness could take hold.
“Thank you,” she managed to say.
“Of course, that also means you’re responsible for medical expenses he might incur,” he added.
Or had caused. Son of a gun! He’d outmaneuvered her. “You think giving me Charlie gets you off the hook, don’t you?”
Another chuckle. This time she was prepared and steeled herself against the reaction. Sort of. She managed to press her fist tight against the fluttering.
“Well, he is your dog now,”
he replied.
Jenny looked over at Charlie who, despite the leash she held, was walking in step with his former owner. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”
Before Nick could retort, she tossed the leash at him and jogged a few feet ahead. Lulu picked up her pace as well, which caused Charlie to run after them. Bonaparte had no choice but to pick up the leash dragging behind.
“I’d say he’s your dog now. Again.” She felt only a tiny kernel of guilt, mostly at leaving Charlie behind. “You know what they say. Possession is nine tenths of the law.”
God, but she wished she could see his expression. Especially after his teeth flashed white in the darkness. “Well played. Is this how you keep your students in line? By tricking them?”
Jenny stumbled at the question. “How did you I was a teacher?”
“Wasn’t too difficult to learn. After you walked out, I made a few calls.”
“Really?” The warm feeling began to fade. What else had his investigation turned up? She’d worked damn hard for her reputation. If he thought he could throw her past in her face… She geared for a fight.
Her tension was unwarranted. “You’re very well respected in town,” he said. “I was impressed. Clearly Ms. Wilson made a good choice when she left Charlie in your care.”
When he didn’t say any more, Jenny’s nerves relaxed. “Does that mean you no longer think I’m trying to con you?”
“I’m willing to concede the point.”
“Thank you. And the vet bills?”
“The check is already on my desk.”
“It is?” She didn’t quite get it. “You said—”
“I know what I said. You have backbone, Miss Travolini. I noticed soon as you marched your way into my office. I like that.”
“Jenny,” she corrected. She ignored the way his compliment caused her stomach to flutter.
“Jenny,” he repeated. The word came out a rough whisper. “Call me Nick.”
At that moment, the atmosphere shifted. Jenny couldn’t pinpoint an exact change. Only that suddenly the afternoon’s adversarial encounter seemed very far away.
The Billionaire's Matchmaker: An Indulgence Anthology (Entangled Indulgence) Page 19