He was glad she wasn’t.
If things got loud, if Caleb and he reached the shouting stage, better for her not to witness it.
Caleb’s door was shut. Travis counted to five, then knocked and turned the knob without waiting for a reply.
The door opened onto a room that was pure Caleb. Contemporary glass walls. Traditional Oriental carpet. Contemporary leather sofa, chairs and coffee table. Traditional—and enormous—antique wood desk.
Caleb stood at the longest wall of glass, his back to the door.
“I’m busy, Edna,” he said. “Whatever it is—”
“Well, that clears up one thing,” Travis said. “You don’t have to call her ‘Miss.’”
Caleb swung around.
“What are you doing here?”
“It’s nice to see you, too.”
Caleb nodded, forced a smile about as real as the one Travis was flashing.
“Yeah,” he said, “well, it’s good to see you, Trav, but—”
“But you’re busy.”
“Exactly.”
Travis shot a pointed look at the empty surface of his brother’s desk.
“Yeah. I can see that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Caleb said, his phony smile fading.
“You’re always busy lately.”
Caleb folded his arms.
“Some of us are. And did you ever hear of knocking?”
“I did knock.”
“What about waiting to be acknowledged? Did you ever hear of that?”
“Acknowledged,” Travis said solemnly, as he walked slowly toward Caleb. “Fancy word for decidin’ whether or not you’re gonna see your own flesh an’ blood, don’t you think?”
“I’m not in the mood for the down-home routine, okay?”
“You’re not in the mood for much lately.”
“Okay. Enough. I don’t know how you got past Edna but you did. And I’ve already told you, I’m—”
“Busy. Right.” Travis sank into one of the chairs facing the desk. “Mind if I sit down?”
Caleb’s eyes narrowed. “Listen, man, this isn’t the time for fun and games.”
“Because?”
“Because—because I have a meeting with a judge in—”
“Bull.”
“Dammit, Travis...”
“Got a new client for you, bro.”
“I have more than enough clients already.”
“Corporate stuff,” Travis said lazily. “This is different.”
Caleb gave a thin smile.
“Shall I let you in on a secret?” His smile faded. “That’s what I do. Corporate law, in case you never noticed.”
Travis lifted his briefcase into his lap, opened it, took out a manila envelope and held it out. Caleb ignored it and Travis shrugged, aimed, and sailed it onto the desk.
“Take a look.”
“I’m not interested.”
“It’s from one of my clients. A Yankee, but I try not to hold that against him. Smart. Tough. More money than God, and a pedigree that goes back to the Mayflower.”
“Good for him. Now, if you don’t mind—”
“But he has a problem. Only one heir. A son. Never did anything to make Daddy proud and now he’s compounded things by dying.”
“A sad tale,” Caleb said coldly.
“It is, but it turns out that he did leave something for posterity. A baby, nice and snug in the belly of his pregnant mistress.”
“Trav, I’m sure this is fascinating to soap-opera fans everywhere, but—”
“No more soaps, Caleb, hadn’t you heard?”
Caleb took a deep breath. Something was going on here, something more than Travis’s tale about a client’s problems.
“Okay. Get to the point.”
“I am. See, the mistress won’t do what my client wants.”
“Not that. I meant—”
“He wants the child. Wants it to carry his family name. Wants to raise it. Better still, adopt it.”
“Adopt it?” Caleb said, caught up despite himself. Corporate law was his first love but there were times it seemed clinical. This, the situation Travis was describing, was as far from clinical as you could get.
“Exactly. He wants the lady to sign the kid over to him at birth.”
Caleb snorted. “Like a car.”
Travis grinned. “Exactly like a car. But she refuses. So my man wants to take her to court.”
“On what grounds?”
“He says she won’t be a fit mother. She has no money. No job. Lives in what he calls a hovel. Has loose morals.”
“And your guy has everything. Money. Status. Power. The morality of all those stiff-necked old Pilgrims.”
“Exactly.” Travis paused. “The thing is, the lady does have one thing he hasn’t. Well, beside the baby in her womb, of course.”
“And that is?”
“She says the father wasn’t my client’s son.”
Caleb nodded. “Interesting. “Well, DNA testing will prove—”
“She won’t be tested. She won’t have anything to do with my client, won’t even take his calls anymore.” Travis smiled. “Which is why he needs a tough, smart attorney.”
“He needs a superhero.”
“Heck, man, how about a little modesty?”
“A superhero,” Caleb said, ignoring the joke, “not me. And, by the way, what’s he doing, looking for a Texan if he’s from the east coast?”
“Well, he’s not going by location, he’s going by instinct. I mean, he trusts me. And he knows of you.” Travis grinned. “Turns out you have quite a hot rep as a legal eagle. When he realized you and I were related—”
“Sorry, Trav. I’m not interested.”
“Too busy?” Travis said. “Haven’t got the time?”
Caleb glared at his brother.
“Thanks for stopping by. Next time, call first.”
“And that’s it?”
“That’s it. I’m not interested. I already said that.”
Travis rose to his feet. Walked to the door.
“You’re not interested in much lately.”
“Okay. I’ve had it. I don’t know what your problem is but—”
“Yeah. I think you do.”
Caleb stared at his brother. Travis had stopped smiling, and his tone had taken on a hard note. Caleb could sense the tension in him...and Travis was right.
He knew exactly what the problem was.
For weeks, ten weeks, to be exact, ever since he’d returned from New York, he’d kept both his brothers at a distance.
He’d told himself they wouldn’t notice.
Such a stupid lie.
Of course, they’d noticed. And now they wanted answers.
Too bad, he thought grimly, because they weren’t going to get them. How could they, when he didn’t have the answers for himself?
All he had was anger and disgust.
At Sage.
Hell. Be honest, Wilde, he told himself.
At himself.
He heard the door shut. Breathed a sigh of relief. Travis was gone. That was something, at least, though now it left him just where he’d been before, his head full of what he could not forget.
He’d gone to bed with a woman he’d just met. God knew, he’d done that before.
He’d spent the night in her bed. He’d done that before, too.
His jaw tightened.
Except, this time the bed wasn’t only the woman’s. It was the bed she shared with her lover.
It made him shudder, thinking of it even now. How another man had lain between those sheets, taken the woman as he’d taken her, heard her cries, f
elt her heat all around him....
“Goddammit,” Caleb muttered.
He looked out the wall of glass, hands jammed into his trouser pockets.
She had made a fool of him, letting him think of her as sweet, fresh and innocent when the ugly truth was that she had a lover, and they had an arrangement.
The guy slept around, and so did she.
Caleb shuddered.
Maybe he had it wrong. Maybe he was the one who’d made a fool of himself.
The deal she had with her lover was none of his business.
It was nasty, yes. Enough to make him angry, but enough to have made him lose his self-control? To have slugged the guy?
The SOB at the club had deserved a beating.
Sage’s lover had simply walked into the right place at the wrong time.
And his reaction, the violence of it, was all because he’d been taken in by Sage’s convincing act, by the humiliation of knowing he’d thought of taking her into his life.
That idea hadn’t lasted long. How could it, when it had been so damned stupid?
But that he’d considered it at all, that he’d been such an ass...
That he still was, because he remembered what he’d felt, what he’d thought he felt, making love to her...
“Something happened in New York.”
Caleb swung around. Travis was standing beside the closed door, arms folded.
“I thought you left.”
“I shut the door but I’m still here.”
“Well, open it again. And go.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Not until you talk to me, not until you tell me what happened back east.”
“I met with a client. I had a meal with an old friend. I went to a party I was too old for. Okay? You happy now?”
Travis came slowly toward him.
“I’m not a fool, Caleb. Something happened.” Travis paused. “That morning when you were in New York. You called me.”
“Did I?” Caleb said, as if the moment weren’t forever burned into his memory.
“It was early. Six-something, your time, and—”
Caleb gave what he hoped was a casual shrug. “I don’t remember.”
“You called,” Travis said flatly. “And you sounded...strange.”
“Maybe because it didn’t happen.”
“Oh, it happened.”
“Look, this just isn’t a good day for—”
“There haven’t been any. Good days, that is. Not with you. Not in a while.”
“Are you done?”
“Why’d you call me? You sounded, I don’t know, happy. Then, all of a sudden, you sounded—not so happy.”
“Good thing you went into finance,” Caleb said coldly, “because you do a lot better with numbers than words.”
“No more games, man. Something happened and we want to know what it was.”
“Is that a royal we or are you a committee of one?”
“That’s what I am. A committee of one. I’m here for me. Jacob. Addison. That scary-as-hell dragon who guards your kingdom.”
“You have too much time on your hands.” Caleb went to his desk, straightened a stack of papers that didn’t need straightening, eyed the manila envelope and shoved it toward his brother. “You all do, this client included. Your imaginations are working themselves into the ground.”
“Did you go to see a doctor?”
Caleb looked up.
“What?”
“Some kind of specialist? Was that the reason you went east?”
Oh, hell. Caleb rubbed his forehead. “Travis. Listen—”
“Goddammit, how come that just hit me? The phone call. The way you’ve acted ever since...” Travis let out a long, suddenly shaky breath. “Are you sick? Sweet Jesus, if you’re—if you’re battling a disease and you haven’t told us...”
“Ah, man.” Caleb sank down in the chair behind his desk. “No,” he said in a low voice. “It’s nothing like that. And I’m sorry if...” He looked up, saw the worry in Travis’s eyes and hated himself for having put it there. “I’m fine, Trav. I swear it. I’m just—I’m just...”
“Just what?”
Caleb stared at his brother. Then he sighed. Maybe if he talked about it, he’d get the whole ugly mess out of his system.
“Sit down,” he said gruffly. “And I’ll tell you.”
And he did.
It didn’t take very long. How could it, when the facts were so simple?
He omitted nothing.
He said he had gone to a woman’s rescue and offered to see her home. It turned out she lived in a bad neighborhood—there’d been an incident in the entryway of her building that could have turned nasty and after that, he’d been reluctant to leave her alone, particularly after what she’d gone through earlier.
Travis kept nodding his head. Well, why wouldn’t he? It was all logical...
“I bunked on the couch in the living room,” Caleb said.
So much for logic.
“And?”
“And, she woke up and I did, too, and—and—”
“You ended up sleeping with her.”
“Yes. Exactly.”
Travis shrugged, a one-guy-to-another kind of shrug.
“Yeah, well, these things happen.”
“Right. It happened. And then, the next morning...” Caleb cleared his throat. “The next morning, a guy walked in, looked kind of surprised to see me there. And then—and then he figured out I’d slept with what turned out to be his woman, and he apologized for walking in on us.”
“Crap,” Travis said, through his teeth.
“I decked him.”
“Of course you did.”
“I don’t even know why I decked him.” Caleb rose to his feet and began pacing. “I mean, it was his place. His woman. I was the intruder, not him.” He ran a hand through his hair, looked at Travis. “Man, I just lost it, you know?”
“Who wouldn’t?”
“It was just—it was so—so—”
“Ugly. They have an open relationship, whatever you want to call it, and that’s not you.”
“No. Hell, no. I mean, if I’d known I was in another man’s bed, with another man’s woman—”
“You thought she was all about you,” Travis said gently, “but it was all about variety.”
Caleb winced. “Exactly.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “I don’t understand why I let it bother me so damned much.”
Travis stood up, clapped his brother on the shoulder.
“Don’t let it. Not anymore. It was just a one-night stand. A little fun, a good time... It wasn’t going to be more than that anyway. Right?”
“Right,” Caleb said briskly, blocking out the rest of it, the uncomfortable realization that he’d been out of control that night, first taking Sage to bed, then punching out her lover...
...Feeling as if he’d been standing on the threshold of something new when he’d awakened with her in his arms that morning.
“Hey,” Travis said. “I mean it. This was just something that happened. Put it behind you.”
It was good advice, and Caleb nodded. “Everything you said makes sense.”
Travis nodded, too. Looked solemn. “Travis Wilde, SPE, to the rescue.”
“SPE?”
“Shrink Par Excellence. And here you thought I was only a genius when it comes to money.”
Travis grinned. Caleb grinned back.
“Thank you, Dr. Wilde, “ he said.
“Oh, no. You don’t get off that easy. You want to show your appreciation, at least read through that file.”
“What...? Oh. Your client. The one who wants to steal a baby from his dead son’s mistres
s.”
“Now, Caleb—”
Caleb laughed. “Just joking. Okay. I’ll take a look. Maybe I can think of somebody to recommend because there’s no way I can take this on. If nothing else, I don’t have the expertise.”
The men walked to the door. Smiled, shook hands, and then Travis left. Caleb sighed and went back to his desk.
Amazing, he thought as he sank into his chair, how much better he felt for having talked about New York.
He’d blown the entire incident out of proportion. Now, thanks to Travis, his head was on straight again.
A one-night stand. Nothing more, nothing less. And it was history.
Caleb opened the manila envelope. Dumped the contents on the desk. A couple of eight-by-ten glossies tumbled out, landed face-first. No matter. He was only interested in the contents of the thin file folder.
He flipped it open. Gave the first page a quick read. It was a listing of the parties involved in what was probably going to be a nasty court case.
Thomas Stinson Caldwell. Age sixty-two. Park Avenue address. Founder and president of a real estate empire valued at... Caleb gave a soft whistle. No wonder the man thought he owned the universe. Caldwell was a widower. He was the father of David Charles Caldwell, deceased. Aged twenty-eight at the time of his death eight weeks ago.
Okay. Page two. The woman...
The woman’s name was Sage Dalton. She was twenty-four.
Caleb’s pulse skittered. Sage? Sage and David? No. It was impossible.
He reached for the glossies. Turned them over.
The blood drained from his face.
One photo was of the guy he’d laid out in Sage’s apartment.
The other—
The other was of Sage.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE ladies’ lounge of the St. Regis on the Park was a sea of gilt and marble, its mirrored walls seemingly held in place by fat, obscene-looking cherubim.
An attendant, clad in a white-and-gold uniform, hovered discreetly in the background.
“If you need anything, miss, just ask,” she’d said when Sage had entered a little while ago.
Sage had thanked her. Then she’d looked into that wall of mirrors...
And shuddered.
She looked awful. Or maybe that was too generous a word.
She was pale. Her eyes were huge and shadowed. Except for the slight rounding of her belly, which you couldn’t see under the suit jacket she was wearing—except for that, she looked painfully thin.
Harlequin Presents January 2013 - Bundle 2 of 2: The Ruthless Caleb WildeBeholden to the ThroneThe Incorrigible Playboy Page 6